


siding with the living

by purple01_prose



Category: Epic (2013), Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Animal Activism, Dolpins, Dubious Science, F/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Not SeaWorld friendly, Politics, Science, mermaid au, orcas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:57:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1275670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple01_prose/pseuds/purple01_prose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. MK Kennedy, noted marine biologist, works at the Guardian Institute for the Protection of Marine Life. She's not quite prepared for other aspects of marine life. Enter: Nod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	siding with the living

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, this fic took _way too fucking long_. I have worked on this fic since last September, when I saw a documentary about Great White Sharks and the freedivers who swam with them. _Then_ I found out that an orca researcher in New Zealand, Dr. Ingrid Visser, actually freedives with the New Zealand Resident pod, and that's how she discovered that NZ Residents hunt sharks and stingrays. I have watched so many orca documentaries at this point, and I was working on this fic when I saw Blackfish (which, as an aside, I do recommend you check out, but watch it with the lights on and preferably not alone. It gets intense, and I've learned enough about orca sociology and the captivity industry at this point to know that it's right on the money). Either way, this fic was a labor of love.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to my marvelous girlfriend, who listened to me carp and complain about how this fic was working out and shaping out, and she's the one who read over the end and told me it worked. This fic is also dedicated to maggins, to whom I have been promising this fic for _forever_. Here it finally is--I'm sorry it took so long.

siding with the living

 

\--

 

“Because this is how dolphins are, all the time. They’re able to live with this kind of intimacy and not be destroyed by it. Our family is close, but in comparison with this other kind of closeness the distances between us are greater than the distances between galaxies.”

 

\--Madeleine L’Engle, A Ring of Endless Light

 

\--

 

MK is five. Her red hair is tied back in two tight braids (Mama did that, “For safety,” Mama says, tying it off carefully, “don’t want your hair all over your face.”), and she pokes her tongue through the gap between two of her bottom teeth. Her bathing suit is bright pink—her favorite color—and she waits with Mama on the boat as it speeds through the water to get to their special place.

 

Daddy couldn’t come. He was busy with research.

 

Mama stands tall and proud next to her in a black bathing suit, one hand on her shoulder and the other holding two pairs of swimming masks. MK doesn’t like them—Ms. Hailey at the YMCA taught her how to swim by breathing through her nose, and the mask doesn’t let her do that.

 

But Mama says it’s what she needs, and she trusts Mama.

 

Finally, the boat comes to a stop. She sees a dorsal fin poking up out of the water not too far from the boat, and she clutches Mama’s hand—shark? But then three more dorsal fins come up, and she relaxes. Dolphins.

 

The man who’s driving the boat says something to Mama, who answers, and then gives MK her mask. “Do you need help putting it on?” Mama asks, crouching so she can look her in the eye.

 

MK shakes her head, feeling her braids slap against her shoulders. “I can do this, Mama.” To prove it, she pulls tight on the strap and pulls it over her face, her arms shaking slightly from the effort. The boat rocks in the waves and MK almost falls, but Mama catches her. The dorsal fins are closer, and now MK can see the grey shapes in the clear water, and she beams as she pulls the mask over her eyes. “Can we get in, Mama? Please?”

 

Mama’s working on her own mask. “When the captain says we can,” she says firmly.

 

MK turns to the captain. “Please?” she asks, clutching her hands together under her chin.

 

The captain, an older man, laughs. “Sí, bebé.”

 

MK beams, and before Mama can stop her, she jumps into the water from the side of the boat. The water’s a little cold, but it’s so clear, and she paddles her feet furiously as she looks all around under the water. The sand is so white, but it’s much further down than she thought it was, and there they are—the dolphins, five of them, with their sleek spotted grey bodies. She can hear them chirping and whistling to each other, and the smallest breaks away from his mother to circle her carefully, before nudging her legs with his snout.

 

MK laughs, and it seems like he laughs too, since he sticks his head out of the water to follow her up, and his creaking sounds just like a laugh. His smile is so pretty, but she knows not to touch. He nudges her again, and then dives, and MK follows him—that’s what he wants, isn’t it? He goes all the way down to the bottom, and she can’t follow him, but she does see him snag a piece of seaweed with his mouth and bring it over to her.

 

She tries to grab it, but he ducks her, and that’s when she realizes he really just wants to play, and two more of the dolphins come over to join the fun. At one point, she manages to grab the seaweed from the biggest, but the smallest pops up next to her and takes it from her gently.

 

Then the three of them speed off, still playing with the seaweed, and MK sees Mama swimming next to her. “Did you see that?” she squeals to Mama, “we played!”

 

Mama beams at her. “I did,” she says. “But don’t jump into the water without me again, okay, MK?”

 

“Yes Mama,” MK says, and Mama tugs her into a half-hug, before treading water again. It looks like the dolphins are gone, but MK smiles at Mama. “I want to do this all the time,” she says. “Swim here. Can we do that?”

 

Mama’s smile slips slightly. “No, sweetie, it would make it less special.”

 

MK pouts. “No, dolphins are always special.”

 

Mama laughs a little. “Come back to the boat. We can come back out here tomorrow, but we leave the day after.”

 

“Because of Daddy’s research,” MK says glumly.

 

Mama tucks a loose piece of hair that escaped the braids behind her ear. “Back into the boat, MK, all right? We’ll come back tomorrow.”

\--

 

“Free diving with the monofin today?” Pitch drawls, preparing the camera.

 

“Just trying it out,” MK tells him, double-checking the ties on her wetsuit. “If I don’t like it, I’ll go back to my regular fins.”

 

“Be careful,” he says seriously as she sits down on the ledge of the boat, hooking up the monofin.

 

She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m always careful.” She eyes the water below, double-checking the fin.

 

“What are you hoping to see today?”

 

“Maybe some whales? Dolphins haven’t been in the area for the past couple of days, but then, it is getting colder.  It’s the right time for right whales, wouldn’t you say?”

 

“Good luck,” Pitch says as she falls over the side. Once she’s cleared into the water, she pops her head back up for the camera, and then she heads out into the water.

 

Once the water closes over her head, sounds are suppressed except for what’s already there. She hears the whistles of a passing whale, and she judges maybe a humpback, before heading down a little deeper.

 

Her breath-holding average is about 7 minutes, but she was able to push it to ten once. She never wants to do that again—she almost blacked out, and Pitch told her later she had, but then, how did she get to the surface? She shakes these thoughts off, drifting out into the sea, listening hard for potential wildlife.

 

A twisting speckled black body darts in front of her, and she turns the camera to follow it, realizing it’s a gray seal. She smiles slightly—she loves seals, they’re so beautiful.

 

The seal circles her twice and then leaves, and by the time she heads back to the Lunanoff, he was the only thing she saw, and she’s a little disgruntled. She tosses the camera up to Pitch, who catches it easily, and then she throws the monofin onto the boat before hauling herself up the ladder. Pitch’s mouth quirks as she starts to strip off the top of her wetsuit, her sports bra underneath it fine. “Not fruitful?” he asks dryly, passing her a towel.

 

“Only saw a grey seal. A. Not even a dolphin or whale.” She balls up the towel after drying her hair and throws it into the deck hamper. “It’s summer, damnit, where are the orcas with their babies?”

 

“Do you really want to swim with Transient orcas?” Pitch inquires, going over to the computers under the bridge and inputting her words into the science log.

 

“Well, no, but the Resident pod should have babies too,” she pouts, joining him at the computers, but to check the hydrophone. She fiddles with the controls, trying to boost the signal, but something keeps interfering, and after four failed tries, she gives up.

 

Tooth comes up from below decks, a frantic look on her face. “We’ve got to head in, North just called that they’ve got a harbor porpoise that got raked really bad by something, and they need you, MK.”

 

“We’re fifteen minutes out if we open the throttle,” Pitch says, “tell North that.”

 

Tooth nods and runs back below, almost slipping on the wet deck but catching herself. Pitch nods at MK’s wetsuit, currently tied around her waist. “Might want to zip that back up.”

 

MK makes a face at him as she does so, mind scanning through possibilities. Something raked a harbor porpoise...orca, shark, or maybe even a propeller? Might be human-caused; volunteers for the Guardian Institute don’t usually get close enough to extract prey from an orca or shark. If it got raked by something, it’ll have open wounds, and given how sensitive their skin can be, stitches might not be an option, and the animal’s probably stressing itself out, which wouldn’t help things out.

 

She starts to sort through triage options—first and foremost, get the animal calm. If the animal’s stressed, no matter what she does, nothing will heal properly because of that. After she gets it calm, anesthetic? A little bit, just enough to numb it to treatment. She won’t know what treatment to give it until she sees the damage, though, and that train of thought consumes her as they head back into port.

 

As soon as Pitch docks, she doesn’t wait for him to tie up the ketch before leaping onto the dock, heading toward the red brick building of the Institute at a run. She almost hits someone as she darts through the crowd, and she calls, “Sorry!” as she passes. The guards know to let her through, and she sprints through the courtyard of the Institute until she skids to a stop at the pools in the back of the building, looking for Bunny and the porpoise.

 

They’re in the tank with the movable floors, and she strips off her shoes before wading in, barely noticing how chilly the water is. Bunny’s got the porpoise on the upraised floor in the center, and MK is shocked at the lacerations on the porpoise’s side, four of them, and they go deep. That’s not a propeller wound; in fact, it’s like no wound she’s ever seen on any marine mammal, period. It’s too long and deep for propeller (which can be long and deep, but these go straight down the side, and it just does not look the same at all), and it’s not orca or shark related—it’s not a bite mark or scrape.

 

“What happened?” she asks Bunny as she approaches, looking over the wound.

 

Bunny shakes his head. “No idea. Never seen its like before.”

 

MK steels herself and sets her shoulders. “Let’s get to work.”

 

Bunny’s managed to calm down the (female) porpoise, and he’s got the necessary medical equipment, and they roll up their (metaphorical) sleeves and get to work.

 

Pitch, having successfully docked the boat, trails after Tooth, Jack, and Jamie back to the Institute. None of their specialties cover healing injured porpoises, so they’re not as concerned. MK’s on it—why should they worry?

 

Pitch is never that sanguine. For North to be that worried—there has to be more to this.

 

A young, white brown-haired man thinking that he is ‘subtly’ following him catches his attention. He catches the boy’s reflection in a mirror on one of the stalls devoted to the ecotourism trade, and the boy doesn’t seem to realize that Pitch has seen him.

 

He considers engaging him but ultimately discards the option—there’s something about him that Pitch is vaguely interested seeing play out.

 

The other three split off into their necessary directions, and he heads to the pool, leaning on the railing surrounding it from the tourist side as he watches MK and Bunny at work.

 

They’re both splashed with blood, and that pool is going to require sterilization, but he pauses at the wounds on the porpoise. It seems familiar, and he thinks hard on where he might have seen it before.

 

No answer comes to him, so he watches as Bunny and MK work steadily as the sun goes down, the air chilling the longer they work. The porpoise lies quietly on the upraised portion of floor, and MK takes every few minutes to assure the creature and stroke its’ head and side gently. She’s always been good at using touch to reinforce that these animals can trust her—he’s seen it time and time again with the various animals she’s helped to rehabilitate.

 

Finally, once the sun’s set completely and a chill wind blows up from the bay, Bunny and MK break away from the porpoise. In the sharp LED lights surrounding the pool, Pitch sees that both of them are covered in blood, but the porpoise’s wound has been bound and the pool will be sterilized once they get the porpoise into an adjoining pool, and there’s a good chance the porpoise will survive.

 

“We got her,” MK says with exhaustion as she and Bunny move the porpoise into a sling. Bunny climbs out of the pool to move the crane, and the porpoise whines as she’s lifted into the air and moved to the adjoining pool. MK swings herself out of the first pool and into the second, and she and Bunny remove the sling from the creature, which then starts to swim around the pool in slow circles.

 

“I’ll take care of the pool,” Bunny says, patting her on the shoulder. “You and Pitch go talk to Mim.”

 

MK straightens her shoulders. “I should probably shower first,” she says, looking down at her wetsuit. It’s black, but the caked blood on it has turned it even darker.

 

“He won’t care,” Pitch observes.

 

“But I care. I smell like porpoise blood,” she appears faintly green, and he allows it. She ducks into the shared locker room, appearing about ten minutes later in sweatpants and a plain green t-shirt, red hair a wet, tangled mop on her head.

 

They fall into step as they head into the Institute, and MK says, “Have you ever seen wounds like that before?”

 

“It seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.”

 

“It seemed like scratches,” MK says slowly, working through the topic. She splays her hand and curls her fingers until it would appear she’s clawing at air. “At one point, I checked my hands against the wounds, and my fingers fit it. Thing is, I can’t think of a human who’d get close enough to a harbor porpoise, of all things, to do that kind of damage and—I don’t think human nails are that strong. There would have been debris in the wounds, and there wasn’t.”

 

“What about the angle?”

 

“I can’t tell what direction the nails were pulling. I’m not a forensic scientist, don’t ask me,” MK asks, a little annoyed. “You look at it.”

 

He sighs. “So how do you think it happened?”

 

“I don’t know—there were no defensive wounds on the porpoise apart from those four scratches, so it’s almost like someone was swimming by and swiped them. But harbor porpoises are shy, so how could that happen? And the amount of force to go that deep—that wasn’t a casual attack.” MK blows a bang out of her face with a frustrated noise. “Ugh, this is not my field.”

 

He pats her on the shoulder as he opens the door to Mim’s office. “You do fine.”

 

\--

 

Early the next morning, MK slides on a clean wetsuit and pads out to the more secluded aspect of the cove. Whenever they’re in port, she likes to wake up early and go swimming, just to swim. She doesn’t bother taking a spotter—since she’s not diving, there’s no point. This cove also has some wildlife, but it’s nowhere near what she expects to run into out into the North Atlantic.

 

The water shocks her a little as she wades in, but she pushes past it, diving under a wave and coming up a little ways away from the shore. She treads water as she pushes her hair out of her face, looking around.

 

The grey dawn and the silence always give her a sense of contentment—this is her time. The ketch can get cramped, even with only four other crewmembers. She comes up for air, before diving down.

 

She twirls around, feeling weightless and free. She closes her eyes as she drifts upward, breaking the surface quietly. She treads water for a moment as the waves lap around her, and then she dives back down.

 

She’s not entirely sure when she realizes she’s not alone, but she turns to see a boy—fairly typical Attractive White Male™ with brown hair, only instead of having legs, like a usual boy, his waist tapers into a silvery dolphin-esque tail with fins on the back.

 

She stares as he drifts closer, backing away when he reaches for her face. He doesn’t like that, if his pout is anything to go by, and when he starts for her again, she turns and swims for the surface.

 

He almost gets her at one point (damn that tail, what did he do, go to a specific manufacturer?), but she ducks underneath him, heading for shore.

 

She’s almost to the point where she could stand on the bottom of the cove when he rises up out of the water like a fucking orca, grabbing her around the waist and dragging her down. She hits at him, trying to get him to let her go, but they’re descending too quickly for her body to adjust, and that’s when it hits her that maybe this guy’s tail isn’t fake. She yells, air bubbles exploding from her mouth, and the boy shakes his head, fastening his lips to hers, and breathes into her mouth. She tries to rip away from him, but one of his hands fists in her hair at the back of her neck, keeping her from moving, and finally she gasps for air—

 

And breathes.

 

The boy’s mouth smiles over hers, and his eyes—murky in the deeps—meet hers, and hold them. She feels spellbound, and the boy’s hands move from her hair to her wetsuit zipper, and then—

 

MK sits up, shocked. Breathing hard, she rips away the blankets on the little cot in the observation house (they sleep there when they need to check on an recovering animal through the night).

 

She hasn’t dreamed about mermaids since she was a little girl, and it’s weird that she’d restart them now, but then again, she hasn’t gotten laid in over a year (celebrating getting her Ph.D, yes), and since she spends most of her time in the water, it was probably only a matter of time.

 

But it didn’t feel like a sex dream, somehow. She was—terrified. Something about that was wrong, and she shivers as she stands up. She can see the porpoise through the window as the rising sun starts to touch the water, and she seems okay, but MK will still check her out before she goes to get breakfast. The Lunanoff needs some repair work anyway, and Pitch won’t leave without her.

 

She trembles a little all the way through her first cup of shitty coffee, until the caffeine hits her bloodstream and the jitters smooth out. She’s more comfortable getting into a wetsuit and getting into the pool with the porpoise, who lets her check her wounds resignedly.

 

She’s one of the most well-behaved porpoises MK’s ever seen, perfectly content to float at the surface while MK switches the dressing. The four deep scratches aren’t infected, and while the female isn’t out of the woods yet, it’s a good sign. MK pats her flank gently and the porpoise blinks at her before MK clambers out of the pool, heading for the locker room. She drapes the wetsuit over one of the rods to dry before rinsing in a shower stall, pulling on a pair of battered jeans and a Godspell t-shirt after. She laces up her short boots, heading out to get breakfast.

 

Two pastries and a coffee later, she’s feeling much better, and as she heads back to the Institute, she trips over a loose part of sidewalk, feeling that rush that means _fuck I’m gonna hit the sidewalk with my FACE_ when hands lock around her elbow, catching her, and she looks up into the face of one of the prettiest guys she’s ever seen.

 

His deep brown eyes, set in a face with round cheeks (a face that smiles; tight faces do not smile much) dotted with freckles, sparkle with good humor. “You all right?” he asks as she straightens, and she tries to get her arm back, but his hands tighten lightly around her elbows. “That could’ve been a bad fall.”

 

“I’m fine,” she says tightly, “please let me go.”

 

He removes his hands from her, and he sticks his hands in his pockets as he looks her over. “Hey, you work at the Institute, right?”

 

“Yes, how may I help you?” she asks coolly, still irritated with him over the elbow-grabbing thing.

 

“I heard you have an injured porpoise—is she doing okay?”

 

MK blinks. “We haven’t released the porpoise’s sex to the media.”

 

The guy shrugs. “Educated guess. Is she going to live?”

 

“She’s not out of the woods, but she seems to be doing okay,” MK says grudgingly. “What’s your interest?”

 

The guy looks at her, and something about him has gone brittle—he doesn’t ping her senses like animal abusers (and hadn’t that been fun when she realized that’s what had been bothering her about her sophomore English professor), but something’s still off there. “Just curious,” he says.

 

“Then I’m not obligated to tell you anything,” she says blithely, moving around him. “If you’ll excuse me.”

 

He grabs her wrist and pulls her back, and outrage is a familiar cloak she pulls over herself. “How dare you--.”

 

“Please,” the guy cuts her off. “Why isn’t she out of the woods?”

 

MK sighs, twisting her wrist out of his grasp. “The wounds are deep, and we’re going to keep her here until she’s healed completely. She’s not swimming properly, thanks to the length and depth of the wounds. They could still get infected. She could get sick because of a lowered immune system. There are a lot of things that could happen.”

 

“Can I come see her?”

 

“She’s in the part of the Institute that isn’t open to the public,” MK tells him. “And if you won’t tell me why you’re interested, I don’t have to persuade the guards to let you through.”

 

“You’re a stubborn piece of tail,” the guy sighs.

 

MK stiffens. “Excuse me?”

 

“It’s not an insult,” he tells her. “I’m Nod. My family fishes around this area—I got to know the local porpoises.  I knew her since she was a calf.”

 

MK stares at him, mouth trembling slightly. She remembers, unwillingly, the Atlantic spotted calf she met when she was five—had that dolphin been in the porpoise’s place (and she knew about it), she’d be interested in making sure he was okay too.

 

“I can only get you in to see her in the evening,” MK says at last. The guy’s—Nod’s, rewards her—smile, and it transforms his face into something far more attractive.

 

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, kissing her cheek. “I’ll meet you at the gate at sunset.”

 

She watches him leave, her cheek tingling slightly.

 

...Okay then.

 

\--

 

Pitch is running data when he sees MK lead a young man into the private pool section. She keeps him well away from the pools, but she points out the otters (a mother and two offspring got caught up in debris, and got cut up pretty badly), the three dolphins (two females and one male—through various means, they can’t survive in the wild, so the Institute does educational shows with them, and then at night, lets them stay in the ocean pen), and finally they come to the pool with the porpoise.

 

It’s unusual behavior, so he stops paying attention to data to watch MK with the young man.

 

The young man hesitates—he wants to go in the pool with the porpoise, Pitch surmises, but MK has her hand on his arm, pulling him back. The porpoise has stopped her aimless circling and is near them, her rounded head out of the water to make sounds at the two of them.

 

The young man crouches, apparently talking to the porpoise, and MK looks more and more confused, so Pitch gets up and leaves the little shed (his computer’s still running data analysis, it’ll take a while) to join them. “Hello,” he drawls, standing over the boy. “What’s this?”

 

“He knows her,” MK tells him, “and he’s not getting in the pool with her.”

 

“How does he know her?” Pitch asks pointedly.

 

“My family fishes around the area; I’ve known her since she was born,” the boy says, not bothering to turn around and face him. It irks Pitch, so he draws himself up.

 

“He still shouldn’t be here,” he reminds MK.

 

“I’ll be quick,” the boy says, standing up. When he turns to face the two of them, Pitch freezes. There’s nothing about this boy that is familiar, but—there is.

 

MK says something. He misses it, so he just nods, heading back to his office to check on data analysis. He doesn’t know how long he’s sat there, staring at numbers that make no sense before MK shows up, confused. “One minute you were scolding me about letting him in, and the next it’s like your eyes glazed over and you didn’t hear a word I said. What happened?”

 

“Where did you meet him?” Pitch asks, a little unsteady.

 

“He saved me from a forcible face-to-cement meeting.” MK tilts her head and looks at him. “You’re upset. I won’t bring him back again--.”

 

“Don’t see him again,” Pitch orders her.

 

She stares at him. “I never planned to--.”

 

“I mean it, MK. Do not see him again.”

 

“Who do you think you are?” she snaps, crossing her arms. “I’m not your daughter, Pitch!” She flinches. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.”

 

Pitch stiffens. “It’s fine,” he says tonelessly. “He’s dangerous, MK.”

 

She looks like she wants to argue, but perhaps she thinks she’s already crossed the line once, so she stays quiet. Instead, she turns and walks away, likely to go feed the other animals. The dolphins may even want her to swim with them—they’re fond of her.

 

He returns to data analysis, mind not really on the task at hand.

 

\--

 

MK hides a yawn as she opens the doors to the Hungry Seagull, the only legit bar in the entire cove. Usually she goes with Tooth, Jack, and Jamie, but Jack’s actually home for a few days once Pitch told them that the Lunanoff is going to be in dry-dock for about a week. Tooth and Jamie decided to head to the next town over for two days, so she’s by herself. North and Bunny don’t frequent bars (at least not with her), and Pitch has been off since yesterday.

 

The bartender beams at her. “Hey, MK,” Claude says, sliding down a cranberry vodka at her. “How’s the porpoise?”

 

“Does everyone know about that?” she asks, sipping it. He’s put in a twist of lemon, and she slides a bill toward him—it’s good. She rarely has more than one or two, but this is a good place for people-watching.

 

“Enough,” Claude says, tucking the bill into his pocket. “You forget, the Institute brings in a lot of business, and everyone’s wondering if the porpoise is going to join the dolphins.”

 

“She’s not,” MK says flatly, drinking more of her cocktail. “She can survive out in the wild as soon as her wounds heal.”

 

Claude sighs. “Shame.”

 

“Kennedy,” someone rumbles behind her, and she turns to see two burly guys—fishermen, if their boots and smell of salt is anything to go by. One of them shoves a bundle of netting at her. “Did you do this?”

 

The netting’s slashed through, and she looks up at them. “No. I didn’t. I haven’t even been out for the last two and a half days.”

 

“You’ve slashed nets before,” the second one growls.

 

“Allegedly,” she chirps.

 

The first one takes a step toward her. “We lost an entire catch because of this.”

 

“I’m sorry about that,” and she is, kind of—while she’s slashed their nets to free dolphins and otters (that’s how the otters at the Institute came to live there)—an entire catch can mean the difference between eating well and not eating at all.

 

“You will--.”

 

Claude bangs on the counter. “Is there a problem?” the man hisses, leaning on the bar. “I won’t have it in here.”

 

“There better not be a problem,” another voice says behind the fishermen, and they move to see—Nod, standing there, his arms crossed over his chest.

 

Between Claude and Nod (both of whom are wiry instead of bulky), the fishermen move along. They wouldn’t hesitate to harm her, but faced with male intervention, they change their tune. Men.

 

She hates people.

 

“Hey, MK,” Claude says hesitantly.

 

She rolls her eyes, draining her cranberry vodka. “Yeah, see you later.”

 

Claude’s smile is soft. “Thanks.” He still has to make a living.

 

Nod falls into step with her, and she wonders if he just came in off a boat—his hair’s soaked, and his clothing clings to the lines of his body. “You okay? They were trying to hunt you.”

 

“Trying, not succeeding,” MK says shortly. “Why are you here?”

 

“Thought I’d ask about the porpoise,” Nod says easily. “Is something wrong?”

 

“Why does Pitch think you’re dangerous?” she demands, turning toward him, shoving her hands in her pockets. “I mean, you’re just a local fisherman, why does he think that?”

 

“What if I was? Dangerous.”

 

“That’s some Twilight shit, and I’m not here for that,” MK snaps, turning on her heel and heading back to the Institute. Nod grabs her wrist, and his tight grip makes her do a mental double-take.

 

“I, Nod, promise that I mean you, MK Kennedy, no harm,” Nod smiles, “I’d swear my blood on it.”

 

“No blood swearing,” she says, a little creeped out. Blood. Ugh.

 

“Let me walk you back to the Institute,” Nod says, hooking his arm through hers. Before she can protest, he’s steering her back, and she wobbles a little (shooting back more than an ounce of vodka with cranberry leads to kinda-graceless MK), leaning on him heavily as they walk past crowds of people (tourist season) back to the Institute.

 

“Something’s wrong,” she says as they open the gate. Her instincts are shrieking. “The porpoise—“ she rips herself from him, running to the back pool. The dolphins are jumping up in agitation from the cove pen, and the otters are chittering. She vaguely heard Nod running after her, but as soon as she gets to the porpoise, she sees the female slamming herself into the sides of the pool, over and over again.

 

MK slides out of her shoes and jumps into the pool. It’s stupid (really stupid), but she can’t think of doing anything else. “Shh,” she soothes, “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” The porpoise pauses as she gets in, but then moves to the opposite side and begins again. MK pushes through the water to get to her side, and she places a gentle hand on the porpoise’s flank.

 

The porpoise is trembling, and something caused this. She just doesn’t know what. The porpoise moves around her, but before she can start slamming herself against the tank again, she hears a splash and sees Nod in the water (oh fuck, Pitch and Mim are going to kill her and she’s going to deserve it), and he places a hand on her rostrum.

 

“Stop,” he orders her. “You’re harming yourself.” The porpoise relaxes against his hand, and he seems to listen to something, before he says, “You are safe here. This woman,” he gestures her over, and MK goes over reluctantly, and he grabs her hand, placing it along the porpoise’s rostrum, next to his. “She is healing you. She is not going to kill you. Stop.”

 

The porpoise relaxes under their grip, and she blinks a large brown eye at MK. She seems—sorry, like she hadn’t realized MK was trying to heal her, and that gives MK a pinch of guilt. She and Bunny haven’t made her feel safe, and that’s on them. Animals stress themselves when they feel unsafe, and stress would prevent the healing process.

 

She doesn’t want to add the porpoise to the animals they take care of. She also doesn’t want to lose her.

 

Finally, the porpoise darts away from them, heading over to the door that links this pool to the pool with movable floors. MK needs to check her scratches, so she hauls herself out of the pool and over to the door mechanism. She sees Nod get out of the pool, and she absently notes he kept his shoes on. Huh. Weird.

 

The door opens with a screech that makes everybody wince, and the porpoise passes through. MK closes the door, picking up her med kit on her way to the pool. The porpoise is idling in the middle, and she moves the floor up slowly (they usually have to corral animals to be able to do this, and no, it’s not the porpoise. Something is up, and she doesn’t know why), until the porpoise is resting on the upraised floor while still half-covered by water.

 

MK slides into the pool, letting the med kit float over. The porpoise isn’t trembling or anything—whatever she picked up from what Nod told her, she’s calm and apparently satisfied with MK’s handling of her.

 

“You do that well,” Nod observes, and when MK glances over at him, she sees he’s sitting on the lip of the pool, feet dangling in the water.

 

“Get your feet out of the water, you barbarian,” she tells him, turning back to her med kit and pulling out her surgical scissors. She hears a slight splash as she cuts away the tape and bandage on the scratches, and she looks over the scratches. The skin around them is red and puffy, but there’s no sign of infection. It’s not bleeding or anything like that, so while she’s pretty sure the porpoise is bruised from her hitting the wall, she’s not bleeding. There’s no swelling that implies internal bleeding, and the porpoise doesn’t flinch when MK runs her hands over her flanks, flippers, and rostrum.

 

She’s just—bruised, and MK breathes a silent sigh of relief.

 

She cleans the scratches again (this the porpoise does flinch at, and MK murmurs to her as the porpoise relaxes again), before wrapping the wounds. The porpoise lets her do it, and once she finishes, she lays a hand on the porpoise’s rostrum. The porpoise closes her eyes, and then MK wades out of the pool to lower the floor and reopen the door.

 

“You do do that well,” Nod says, something weird in his voice as MK hauls her med kit out of the pool, letting it rest under the bench that bridges both pools. Bunny’s is also under there, and she makes sure her kit is closed before grabbing towels. She throws one at Nod, wiping at her jeans and feet. Her green shirt’s damp but not soaked, and her hair is almost untouched, yes.

 

“I should be,” MK explains to him, sitting down on the bench to pull on her shoes. She strips off her socks, putting them in her pocket before lacing up her boots. “After I got my bachelor’s degree in marine biology, I went to work for SeaWorld San Diego as part of the veterinary corps. I left after 8 months, completely disillusioned with the work, and I went back to school to get my Ph.D in marine mammal biology, with a focus on cetaceans. I’ve been working here while I got my Ph.D, and I’ve been here for almost five years now.”

 

“It’s not just your skills,” Nod tells her, sitting down next to her on the bench. He presses her sternum, right above her heart, “it’s this. You—feel things.”

 

“I’ve always had empathy,” she says awkwardly, shying away from his touch.

 

“That is why you left your first job,” he says, looking at her. “It hurt.”

 

“One of the female orcas was pregnant when I got there,” MK says, surprised that she’s telling a total stranger this story. Pitch, Mim, and her mother know, but the rest of their people have never heard this. “She gave birth when I hit the six-month mark. I’d had questions before that, but—I’d managed to shove them down. Anyway, when she gave birth—the baby was stillborn.” MK looks down, her lip trembling a little.

 

“The female was so broken—she cried, and wouldn’t let us take away the baby away. We finally had to sedate her, just so we could take away the corpse. My boss—he ran the entire veterinary services for all of the animals in the park—he wouldn’t let us do an autopsy to figure out why the baby was stillborn, and within two months, the trainers were putting the female back in the pool with the male. She’s eight.”

 

Nod tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, running his knuckles down her cheek. She flinches a little, and his smile is sad. “You could not remain there.”

 

She shakes her head, and he leans his forehead against hers. “You have a heart,” he tells her.

 

“Is that a surprise?”

 

He hums. “Sometimes we wonder about your kind.”

 

“—I’m sorry?”

 

“Never mind,” he says, standing up and offering her his hand.  “I...am impressed.”

 

She raises her brows, and he grins at her, and while he’s an ass, she told him about the loss of the baby. His grin does funny things to her stomach, and she looks down as her cheeks heat.

 

“I’ll get you dinner,” he tells her, tugging her forward until he can wrap an arm around her. She should tell him he’s overstepping, tell him to let her go—

 

But.

 

He smells good, like the breeze off the ocean, and she loves that, and he feels good, and she shouldn’t encourage this but—maybe just for tonight.

 

\--

 

“MK, I think you’d better check her,” Bunny says, leaning on the doorframe of her tiny office. “She won’t let me touch her.”

 

MK looks up at him, immersed in orca data. “Hm?”

 

“The porpoise,” Bunny clarifies, his tattoos stark against his skin. His wetsuit’s tangled around his waist, and MK does not ogle him. “She won’t let me touch her to check her scratches.”

 

“And you’d think she let me touch her?” MK asks, getting up and following Bunny to the rehab pool.

 

“Please, you’ve got the gift,” Bunny snorts. His Australian drawl is softened by all his years in Canada, but it shows up every so often in how he pronounces words, like ‘gift.’

 

“I will take that not at all personally,” MK says dryly, double-checking the zipper of her wetsuit. “If she’s good to go within the next two days, I could be back on the Lunanoff in four. Pitch’s got that one part of the engine fixed.”

 

Bunny wrinkles his nose, suddenly looking like the rabbit he’s nicknamed for. “Still can’t believe you want to be in a boat with that bloody--.”

 

“Be nice,” MK instructs, before sliding on the socks she wears when in the pool, kneeling down as the porpoise approaches her, slipping into the pool without much of a splash. “He’s got his reasons for why he is the way he is, just like you do.”

 

“He’s a git,” Bunny mutters.

 

“Yeah, and you wind him up at every opportunity,” MK says patiently, waiting for the porpoise to calm. She does so, butting MK playfully.

 

Harbor porpoises can be playful, but not that playful. MK frowns, running her hand down the female’s flank, before gently peeling away the bandage to check the scratches. “Jack winds up Pitch too, and you don’t tell him to give Pitch a break,” Bunny’s saying as MK checks. The scratches have faded to pink lines, and they’re not open. When MK runs her fingers down the skin (not swelled and puffy at all), the porpoise doesn’t flinch, so they don’t cause her pain.

 

She’s doing really well. She says absently, “Jack reminds Pitch of Sera, so he lets him do that. You’re just being an ass.”

 

She can hear Bunny’s eye roll. “I’m only responding--.”

 

“Be the bigger person and stop. You have the nasty tendency to find a person’s sore spot and poke it until it’s aching and bleeding. You think I haven’t seen you do that with Jack?” MK looks up at Bunny, tossing the bandage to the outside of the pool. “You know this kid has Issues about loneliness and isolation, and you just reinforce that, and honestly, it sucks and sometimes makes me wonder why I like you.”

 

“He just pisses me off,” Bunny says, stooping to pick up the discarded bandage. “Both hims. And then I’m not watching what I say--.”

 

“Bunny. You’re an adult. Jack’s 19. And Pitch...” she trails off. “You’ve got a good heart, but god, you can be an ass.”

 

“That’s fair,” Bunny says grudgingly. As MK climbs out of the pool, he braces her as she stands up, trailing water. “You remind Pitch of Sera, too,” he reminds her.

 

“And so does Katherine,” MK rolls her eyes. “Pitch tends to project his perception of his daughter on the young people who are around him.”

 

“That doesn’t bother you?”

 

“That’s what grief does to you,” MK snaps, refusing to think about Dad. Unlike Sera, he’s not lost to her because of death. “Especially when you don’t deal with it.” She starts to pat down her hair with a towel, grinning when the porpoise does a noisy jump.

 

“See what I told you?” Bunny offers, looking at the porpoise, who looks ecstatic. “You’ve got the gift.”

 

“She should be able to released in a day or so,” MK says, checking her food chart. “She’s been eating really well.” And suffering no ill effects from attempting to beat herself on the pool walls.

 

Now that she thinks about it, it is a little strange, but if it means that the porpoise can go back to her home, all the better.

 

“That’s good,” Bunny says, shoving his hands toward his pockets before remembering that his wetsuit doesn’t have pockets. MK looks over to see who inspired the defensive reaction when she sees Tooth heading over, trailed by Pitch, trademark scowl firmly pinned to his face.

 

Tooth looks really excited—she’s bouncing. Her teal-and-pink-streaked hair is back in a bun, but her bouncing is so excited, her hair is starting to fall out of her bun. “MK, I’ve got a research grant to go study in the Galapagos,” she cries, grabbing MK’s arm.

 

MK starts, surprised. Permits for that are ridiculously hard, and since Tooth’s doctoral dissertation was about the status of endangered exotic birds thanks to animal trafficking, this is a dream come true for her. “That’s so great,” she beams, hugging Tooth. “When do you leave?”

 

“In about two weeks, and I’ll be back in a year,” Tooth grins, hugging back. She’s a little short than MK, but it doesn’t matter when she’s bouncing like this.

 

“We’ll have to find someone to cover her role on the ketch,” Pitch says dryly.

 

MK makes a face at him. “Oh stop, be happy for her.”

 

“I am happy for her,” Pitch drawls, but the corner of his mouth twitches subtly. If MK hadn’t been looking for it, she’d never have seen it. “Congratulations, Tooth.”

 

Tooth beams at him, at that stage of being so infectiously happy nothing can get her down. “Thank you!”

 

“Indeed, congratulations,” Mim says, exiting his office, no doubt to investigate why four of his employees are gathered outside of the rehab pool. “We will miss you, but it’s an incredibly opportunity and we wish you the best.” His voice is as soft as always, but he never fails to make sure they hear him and understand. Unlike the rest of them, grungy scientists that they are, he’s always immaculate in a suit and tie, and MK would really like to know how the man manages to keep his shoes from being ruined by salt water.

 

(She lost one pair of good boots the first week on the Lunanoff. Nope, never again).

 

MK catches the sarcastic tilt of Pitch’s eyes as he looks down at their employer, and she wonders, again, what the issues are between them. It’s clear there’s something, because there’s always this weird tension between them, but she’s never heard what it is. Even North doesn’t know.

 

Katherine might, but Katherine’s usually abroad as their press person, and MK hasn’t seen her in months.

 

“I’ll be back,” Tooth promises, “I love it up here, even if it is a little cold.”

 

“No such thing as too cold,” North booms. “Tooth, I heard, congratulations.”

 

MK rolls her eyes as she looks at the big Russian (sometimes she wonders if he deliberately broadens his accent to sound like a Bond villain. It would appeal to his sense of humor).

 

“Thank you,” Tooth squeals. While they go around, MK slips over until she’s between Mim and Pitch, always uncomfortable but better than leaving them alone.

 

“So, we’re losing Tooth for a year, and Jack and Jamie are heading back to school in a week,” she says quietly. “So it’ll be me and Pitch running the ketch?”

 

It’ll be hard—not impossible, but hard.

 

“Sandy’s coming up from Toronto to assist,” Mim assures her. “He’s worked as Canadian PR for long enough, he’s ready to do research again. And I’ve hired someone to be another pair of hands once you start going out for weeks at a time. He’s starting next week, after Jack and Jamie depart.”

 

“Who?” Pitch asks, surprised. Normally Mim lets him control his crew.

 

“A local boy, has plenty of knowledge about the area.”

 

Something about that sounds familiar to MK, but there are lots of locals who could be hired hands, so she doesn’t think much about it.  “When’s Katherine coming back?”

 

“She’s currently working with the Humane Society of the United States, and I don’t expect her back for another three months at least,” Mim says lightly. “They’re working on transparency when it comes to the likes of Marineland and SeaWorld, especially given certain...issues.”

 

MK nods, feeling a little unhappy. She misses Katherine, because the other girl is more like her than like Tooth. Tooth’s excitable and easily pleased; Katherine’s kind of quiet and thinks deeply on things.

 

“All right,” she sighs. She doesn’t really carry a cell phone except for when she’s here; she doesn’t get service when out on the ketch. It goes for Wi-Fi too, which can make it difficult to keep in contact with people.

 

Mim pats her arm. “Keep up the good work, MK. The porpoise is doing well, and I’m very proud.”

 

“Because she did it to earn your pride,” Pitch says waspishly.

 

Mim ignores it, like he always does. “If we release the female the day after tomorrow, would that be too quick?”

 

“No, it’d be okay. You want her in the ketch so we can release her out in the Atlantic, or should we just open the ocean pen?”

 

“The ocean pen should be enough,” Mim hums. “But tag her, all right? I want us to be able to check to see how she’s doing.”

 

MK nods. They’ve got some small tags, and she can tag the female’s dorsal—she won’t even notice the tag if she does this right. Pitch turns to look at Mim. “I want to meet the boy you hired.”

 

“He’ll be here next week,” Mim says firmly.

 

Pitch opens his mouth to say something, but MK slips, falling into him, and Pitch steadies her carefully. “I’m sorry, wet socks,” she says, getting to her feet carefully.

 

“Indeed,” Pitch says. “You might want to shower and change, if Tooth is determined to celebrate.”

 

“She is,” MK says, grinning. “You actually coming out with us, old man?”

 

“Someone has to watch the children,” Pitch says loftily.

 

“Hm,” she says.

 

“Go change,” he tells her, looking beyond her. It sounds like Jack and Jamie have joined them. “I’ll manage everyone until you’re ready.”

 

“Thanks Pitch.”

 

She takes the world’s quickest shower, not bothering to condition her hair, just shampoo it. She has a collection of ratty t-shirts and jeans that she only wears when on the mainland (since she’s in sweats on the ketch or her wetsuit), and she slips on her ankle boots after pulling on a sweatshirt. She’s not planning on drinking too much tonight, just enough to give Tooth a proper congratulations.

 

Pitch is riding herd on them, and MK trails behind them as Jack nudges Pitch while laughing with Jamie. Tooth is talking excitedly to North and Bunny, pulling on their arms every so often.

 

She wonders if Nod will spontaneously show up, and she smiles at the thought. She hasn’t seen him since that night with the porpoise, and she misses him, a little. She’s not completely comfortable around him, but she likes him.

 

Pitch angles his body to do a ‘subtle’ headcount, and she waves at him when he checks on her. As they approach the bar, MK realizes she doesn’t want to go in, even though she’d like to celebrate with Tooth. She moves up a little, catching Tooth’s sleeve. “Hey, I’m sorry, I’m really tired,” she says quickly, feeling embarrassment burn on her cheeks. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I swear, we will go out the night before you leave and get completely trashed, okay?”

 

Tooth grins at her. “I will hold you to that,” she promises, squeezing MK’s arm. “Go sleep.”

 

MK smiles back. “Have a good night, all right?”

 

“We will!”

 

MK nods at Pitch, who looks momentarily worried, and she starts back for the Institute. Something about the bar tonight just doesn’t feel like it’s safe for her. But she doesn’t want to head back to the Institute yet either—she doesn’t want to around Mim right now, not when he and Pitch are having a fresh outbreak of their issues.

 

She doesn’t want to navigate that particular minefield.

 

Instead, she takes a left to head the cove she normally swims in in the mornings, far away from the fishing docks (no need to provide the fishermen with an easy target), climbing over slippery rocks until she’s in the hidden cove. She slips off her shoes and rolls up her pant legs, wading into the cove. The tide’s out, and she shivers in the cold water as it laps at her ankles. She can hear the muffled music from the town, but it’s blocked, and the light mostly comes from the full moon.

 

She sees a whale breach, and when she strains her eyes, she realizes that it’s probably an orca. She smiles, putting her hands in her pockets as it breaches once more with a loud splash, and she feels the wind start up, but it’s gentle, even though it’s cold.

 

She turns to walk back onto the beach, sitting down on the sand and hugging her knees to her chest. Her feet are covered in sand, and she likes it, wiggling the sand between her toes.

 

She yawns, resting her forehead on her knees as the wind dies down. She’s cold, but it’s a distant feeling. She lets her eyes close, ignoring how cold she feels.

 

“MK...”

 

She jerks upright at the whisper on the breeze, looking around. “Hello?”

 

The wind sighs around her. “MK...”

 

She jumps to her feet, slipping on her shoes as she looks around the cove and realizes how alone she is. The moon hangs low on the horizon, and she hadn’t realized it was so late.

 

The tide is coming in.

 

“...MK!” This time, whatever it is sounds a lot closer, and she wishes she had something on her. She starts to walk to the rocks, but somehow the distance stretches, until she’s moving in place, and she doesn’t understand.

 

“MK,” the breeze sing-songs, and she starts when something grabs her ankle. She looks down, only to see a guy with a mermaid’s tail half-out of the water, clutching her ankle. He smirks at her, flashing pointed, serrated teeth, and when she tries to jerk her ankle out of his grasp, his hold tightens until she falls over.

 

He must’ve been waiting for that, because he crawls up and over her, propping himself up with his hands, but the lower half of his body is draped over her waist and between her spread legs. His body’s heavy and wet, and she’s pinned to the sand.

 

“Let me go,” she demands, and he shakes his head.

 

“We will never--.”

 

“—MK?” MK jerks awake as Pitch lays a hand on her shoulder. He raises his eyebrows as she gulps in air, and she’s pretty sure he’s smirking slightly. Because he’s an ass.

 

“Just—let me breathe,” she gasps, stretching out her legs and rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Not—good dream.”

 

His smirk disappears to be replaced with a frown of concern. “You were sleeping long enough to dream?”

 

“I guess,” she says, starting to calm down. “I—my sleeping’s been weird anyway.”

 

“What were you dreaming about?”

 

“Mermaids,” she says, standing up and brushing off sand off her jeans. Pitch unfolds his body and stands up gracefully, watching her with his face inscrutable. “I keep dreaming about them, but they’re not good dreams. It’s like—I’m prey or something.”

 

“That’s atypical,” Pitch remarks, “not that I’ve dreamt much about mermaids, mind.”

 

“I’ve dreamt about mermaids since I was little,” MK says, leaning her weight on Pitch’s arm as she pulls on her shoes. He lets her with a little sigh of put-upon-ness. “At first, they were happy dreams—playing in the water, having fun. But as I got older, it turned into something more menacing. By the time I hit college, the dreams had stopped, and now they’re back again. I don’t know why. I’d always written off the turn to the events in my life and hadn’t thought more of it.”

 

“Come have some warm milk with honey, you’re chilled to the bone,” Pitch says. She’s never sure if he’s ignoring her in these moments, or he doesn’t know what to say, or it settles into some sort of conclusion that he won’t tell her because—whatever. “Everyone is back in their respective abodes. North and Tooth decided to have a drinking contest. Tooth won, but Bunny had to carry the unconscious North back to the Institute.”

 

MK giggles at the mental image of the shorter, muscular Australian carrying bigger, older North over his shoulders, and she sees Pitch smirk. “I may have taken pictures,” Pitch says smoothly, adjusting his jacket.

 

“Make sure Tooth gets copies for the inevitable photo album,” MK says as they head back to the Institute. “She’s been tracking all of us.”

 

“A little attached to memories, that one,” Pitch mutters, and MK elbows him.

 

“Hey, the New Years Party of ’10 was unforgettable.”

 

Pitch sniffs as she grins at the memories of Pitch getting completely wasted and standing on the table and belting out ‘Memory’ perfectly, if in about 5 keys down from the original.

 

“You should not be alone late at night,” Pitch says as he opens the door to the Institute for her. “You have enemies, and Claude informed me of the altercation a week ago, and that a boy he’s never seen before stepped in.” He arches a brow at her. “Would this happen to be a supposed local boy, whom the locals don’t recognize?”

 

“Yeah, Nod stepped in,” MK says defensively. “This is the night when the porpoise tried to...What’s your issue with him?”

 

“He’s attempting to be overly familiar too quickly. That rings alarms, for me.” He sees the way she swallows and looks away, and he pounces. “You see it too, so why so defensive?”

 

“I told him. About the stillbirth.”

 

Pitch stares at her, door forgotten in his hand. “Have you lost your mind?” he says in a whisper, seeing her flinch at his tone. “You’ve just given material for him to manipulate you on a silver platter!”

 

“He hasn’t used it, I haven’t even seen him since!” MK is paling, and she’s either angry or frightened. Possibly a combination of both. “Which, okay, surprised me, all right?”

 

“Why did you tell him?” Pitch asks politely, steering her after closing the door to the Institute. “You rarely breathe a word about your origins; I believe only Mim and myself are fully aware of your backstory beyond your brief tenure with SeaWorld. You’re one of the most close-mouthed people I know, and that is saying something. So why him?”

 

MK looks away. “I...don’t know. It felt right.”

 

Pitch’s lips curl in a snarl. “It felt right?”

 

“What do you want from me?” she challenges, crossing her arms and staring up at him. “I don’t know why I told him, except that the moment was right, and I just—” She falls silent, looking down at the otter pool. “I like him.”

 

Many girls have been ruined for the liking of a boy, but he chooses not to say that. “Be careful,” he tells her, moving past her to the tiny room he does his data tracking in. “And should you require me, I will be more than happy to warn him off.”

 

“I’m sure,” she agrees, watching him go. “You’ve always looked out for me, anyway.”

 

\--

 

Nod sticks his hands in his pockets as he wanders down the docks to the boat. These human clothes are strange and stick in odd locations, and he misses the cool weightlessness of water.

 

“This is your duty,” Ronin had said two moons ago, the two of them hiding between the swells as they watched the human boat bob in the rough waves. “She has been marked for our kind since she was a tailling. You will do this.”

 

“I will,” he had sworn, seeing the red hair of the human above the boat through the cloudy glass.

 

He does not object to it, though she has been more difficult than he thought she would be. Normally, when they capture humans, it takes a blink of their eyes and the humming of their song, and the human will follow them to the depths of the ocean.

 

Then again, when they capture humans, it is not those who have been marked to join them.

 

Yet he feels loath to compel her. It had not taken her much to fall prey to his support, and he could certainly exploit that vulnerability, but he does not wish to. He wishes her to come to him of his own accord.

 

It is an odd feeling, one he is not entirely comfortable with.

 

He stops outside their boat and looks up. The woman is sitting on the raised deck near the prow in a coat, her legs hanging over the edge, and she was looking at something in her lap. Her hair is tied back in a braid and the sun illuminates her perfectly, and he breathes in sharply.

 

MK is a star, independent of the cycles of the sun and the moon. He had never realized the type of—he stumbles mentally—attachment, not with anyone. Ronin has Tara, but he’d assumed it was part of the alpha bond.

 

This has nothing to do with the alpha bond.

 

MK must feel his wondering eyes, because she looks away from her work to meet his eyes, and her face creases in a smile, but her eyes are still guarded. “Nod! What are you doing here?”

 

He’s never seen her in daylight before. It suits her.

 

“I’m the new,” he wonders which word to use, before he says, “hand, I think. I was hired by your employer.”

 

She furrows her brow, picking up her legs from the edge so that she can stand up. “You’re the new help? Mim hired you?”

 

“Yes,” he says, smiling up at her.

 

Instead, she frowns. “Pitch isn’t going to be happy about that.”

 

It is such a strange way of dealing with it he blinks. “Why wouldn’t he be happy about it?”

 

“Hang on, I’m coming down.”

 

He sees her put aside whatever she’s working on, heading down until she’s off the boat and near him. He inhales her scent of salt water, sunlight, and some kind of flower. He wants to tug her close and bury his face in her hair, mark up her neck so that every human who dares look at her knows that she is not for them.

 

This is out of control.

 

“Seriously, Pitch isn’t going to be happy,” she murmurs, looking up at him. “He doesn’t like you.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I wonder,” he hears a rich drawl from behind him, and he turns around to look up at Pitch. The man is taller than most humans, and his skin itches at the dark look Pitch is directing toward him. “You are the new hire?”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“Mim hired you,” Pitch says levelly.

 

“Pitch,” MK starts.

 

“Excuse me.”

 

Nod watches the man stalk through the crowd back to the Institute and MK whistles quietly. “He’s going to be murderous when he gets back, so let’s get you situated now, okay?” She looks him up and down. “No bag?”

 

“Don’t need one,” he says breezily. If everything goes to plan, they’ll be together before he’d need a change of clothes.

 

She frowns. “You’re going to want another couple of pairs of jeans and shirts, and maybe a second pair of shoes.”

 

“She is right,” a booming voice agrees behind him, and he flinches to see the big man in the red coat behind him. “Salt water does not agree with clothes.”

 

“North, can you take him to get some spare changes while I ready the Lunanoff for departure?” MK asks the big man, and she’s anxious, Nod can feel it. “Pitch is going to be in a really bad mood when he gets back and the only thing that will ease it will be getting as far from Mim as possible.”

 

“Your wish, my command,” the man bows, and he grabs Nod’s arm, starting to tow him back toward the shops. “MK does not often request. You will learn this.”

 

MK watches as North pulls Nod with him, and she climbs back up into the ketch, running through her checklist in her head. Pitch said the engine’s ready to go, so she won’t check it. Fuel levels? Food? They’re supposed to be heading out for about three weeks, do they have enough fuel and food for that long? What about water?

 

She sees Sandy sitting at the computer desk, looking over weather charts and he’s frowning, so she heads over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Sandy?”

 

The man looks up her, his black flyaway hair even more flyaway than usual, and his eyebrows meet in the middle. He points to the weather charts, and she leans to examine them. A storm system is developing in the Northern-Mid-Atlantic, but they’re heading up towards Greenland and should be relatively sheltered. “I think we’ll be okay,” she tells him, squeezing his shoulder. “The biggest issue will be getting to Greenland, but since we’re leaving today and that system’s two days off, we should be okay.”

 

Sandy signs back, _Something tells me we should stay close to port._

 

Getting used to Sandy’s signing was challenging at first. She’s not sure if Sandy’s mute or just refuses to speak, and he doesn’t use ASL or any other known sign language. Pitch had to translate for her the first few weeks that she spent time with him, but she finally got a rudimentary understanding and now she understands him as well as Pitch does.

 

“Don’t go all intuitive on me now,” MK warns. “We’re scientists. Give me a reason, not ‘something.’”

 

Sandy shrugs. _I do not have the words, but the storm system’s timing is strange for this time of year._

 

“So, what, it’s making us stay in port for some nebulous reason?” MK looks at Sandy, a little bemused. He shrugs again. “Nice try, I think you spent too much time abroad.” She pats his shoulder and heads into the galley.

 

She’s checked through the entire checklist when she hears North’s heavy footsteps on board above, and she puts away the last bag of rice in time to hear a quiet knock on the doorframe, and she turns to see Nod leaning against the doorframe. “Is this your realm?”

 

She blinks at ‘realm,’ but shrugs. “We all take our turns cooking. Sandy and Pitch are better than me, though North kicks all of our asses with his baked goods. His cookies are worth dying for.”

 

“Are they?” Nod asks, tilting his head to look at her. She shrugs again, moving to check the stove. The dials are squeaky and she’s a little worried about it.

 

“I like them, at least,” she says distractedly. “Pitch refuses to touch them because he wants to keep his svelte figure, not that he says it in so many words. Sandy scarfs them down.” When she feels like the dials for the stove are marginally less squeaky, she turns around to find Nod has her crowded against the stove, and she looks up at him in surprise.

 

Nod cradles her jaw with his hand, ducking down and hesitating. She freezes. She doesn’t know if she wants him to kiss her, because on one hand his lips look really soft and she told him about the stillbirth but at the same time she hears Pitch say, “you handed him material to manipulate you on a silver platter.”

 

Kissing him means she’s crossed that line.

 

Nod’s face twitches a little, and he half-turns, shielding her. MK realizes Pitch is Looking at the two of them, and she shrinks back against the stove.  Pitch clears his throat, and sounds like he’s restraining a growl. “Welcome to the crew, boy. Get scrubbing, we set out in an hour.”

 

Nod knows his cue when given, and he scrambles out of the galley, squeezing past Pitch, who is an ass and won’t move aside for Nod. MK takes a deep breath before meeting Pitch’s eyes, and he looks back at her, expressionless. “Nothing happened.”

 

“Indeed,” Pitch says.

 

“What did Mim say?” MK says, deftly changing the subject. Pitch’s face twitches—in anger or general unhappiness, she doesn’t know. She is fluent in Pitch, but she is not his oracle.

 

“That we’ve been alienating the community by only bringing in people from not the local area, never mind of course that we’re all scientists with degrees. He added it was your penchant for cutting the local nets that was a particular obstacle.”

 

“It’s not a penchant, dolphins, seals, and even small whales have gotten stuck and I haven’t made huge cuts, just enough for the animals to get out,” MK objects.

 

Pitch shrugs. “We are dependent on the goodwill of the community. So Mim’s extension of good faith to the community was to hire a local boy for a season, see how he fits.”

 

“You hate this.”

 

“Yes, but as it is his ketch and his institute, there is very little I can do beyond quit at this point, and there are multiple reasons why I cannot do that.”

 

Like how Pitch is a prissy prima donna who finds it difficult to work with other scientists. MK shakes her head. “Why do you hate him? You’ve been working with him longer than North and Bunny.”

 

“One day I’ll tell you, but today isn’t it because we have to outrun a storm.”

 

\--

 

“You have got to be kidding me,” MK says with disgust.

 

Everyone seems to share her sentiments, if the quiet mutters of agreement are anything to go by. “You said you’d checked the engine!”

 

“We had the part when we left port,” Pitch says scathingly, not moving from his place on the floorboards where he’s examining the engine. “Remember, I was able to open the throttle and keep it open until we learned the storm would miss us thanks to the direction we were heading, and that’s when we stalled.”

 

“And now we’re stuck, unless you can find it or the Coast Guard comes to find us,” MK retorts. “Which—oh by the way—they can’t, because of that same storm. It’s blocking us off.”

 

Sandy looks troubled, and he signs, _‘It’s almost like someone wanted us to get stuck out here.’_

 

“Oh, Sandy, come come,” North says, clapping him on the shoulder. Sandy staggers a little bit. “That is paranoid, even for you.”

 

“Oh no, he might have a point,” Pitch says, sitting up and wiping engine grease off his fingers with a dirty rag. Nod, MK observes, looks a little confused. He hasn’t picked up Sandy’s signing yet—he will. “Still, there isn’t much we can do now. We’ve radioed the Institute and the Coast Guard knows we’re out here, but we’ve food enough to survive at least a couple of days.”

 

MK shrugs. “Fine.”

 

“Fine what?” Pitch asks suspiciously.

 

“If we’re going to be stuck here, we might as well get some research done,” she says flatly. “I’m going to get into my wetsuit, you all are going to put down the hydrophones and link up my camera to the computer, and we’ll get going from there. We’re in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, surely we can find something.” They’d meant to get off the shore of Greenland, but they won’t be able to do that until they find the part or something. “There are belugas in this area,” she reminds them, starting to tie up her hair in a faux French braid. “I know we focus mainly on orcas and dolphins, but belugas, Pitch.”

 

“Is that wise, with what Sandy’s said?” he asks her, holding her gaze with his. MK briefly wonders why he doesn’t just repeat what Sandy signed, but she shrugs it off.

 

“I need to get out there,” she says, tying her braid securely so she can tuck it into her cap. “If I stay on this boat a second longer I am going to scream.”

 

“Fair enough,” Pitch says, mouth twitching. “I’ll act as spotter.”

 

“Shouldn’t someone be in the water with you? It gets murky,” Nod says.

 

MK almost pities him when Pitch sears him with a glance. ”Indeed, but she is well trained and why I shall act as spotter.”

 

Nod opens his mouth—probably to argue the point—but Pitch just moves right past him, saying, “North, can you put out the hydrophones?”

 

MK disappears below decks to change, sliding on her wetsuit and pulling tight all the zippers and straps. Her cap she leaves off until she’s almost ready to jump in, and she grabs her mask and fins. She can dive with her snorkel, but she doesn’t like to in places this cold.

 

Nod grabs her wrist as she exits her room, and she jumps. “What?”

 

“This could be dangerous,” he warns her.

 

She twists her wrist out of his grasp. “Freediving is always dangerous,” she dismisses, heading up the stairs. At the top she stops, and looks down at him. “But it’s sweet of you to worry.”

 

Pitch is prepping her camera. “Admit it, you just wanted to say you’ve swum with belugas.”

 

“Wouldn’t you?” she teases quietly, sitting to pull on her fins. She hears the satphone start to ring—probably the Institute to check that they’re okay. “They’re beautiful.”

 

“I just think it’s amazing you haven’t pulled us into the Arctic Circle so you can swim with narwhals,” Pitch says, giving her her mask as she stands up awkwardly.

 

“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind,” MK warns, pulling up her cap and tucking away her braid.

 

“MK,” North says, and she turns toward him, curious. She’s never heard that tone from him before, a deep, saddened tone.

 

“What is it?” she asks, straightening as she starts to pull on her mask. “Did the storm hit the Institute?” Oh god, that could send the otters into a tizzy.

 

“No.” North takes a deep breath. “It’s your mother.”

 

MK stops breathing. Pitch hesitates before putting a hand on her shoulder. “What happened?” he asks harshly.

 

“She was in car accident,” North says. “She is in hospital, in coma.”

 

MK calmly pulls on her mask, checking her wristband’s compass. She needs to head south. “All right.”

 

“MK?” Pitch says suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

 

“The engine is stalled, so I’m going to do what I’m good at,” she says calmly. “I’m going to swim it.”

 

“Have you taken leave of your senses, that would be well over a day—”

 

“I can’t just sit here and wait to be rescued by the Coast Guard,” she snaps, losing her cool at last. “This is my mother, Pitch!” She approaches the lip of the boat, preparing to jump off, but before she can do so, someone’s arm encircles her midsection, pulling her away from the edge of the boat. She can feel that it’s Nod, and she struggles in his grasp, but he’s a lot stronger than she’d thought.

 

“There’s a storm,” Nod reminds her, not letting go of her as she struggles, “and it’s in the way, you’d drown.”

 

“A good point,” Pitch says severely. “We can’t go anywhere until that storm moves.”

 

“But—it’s my mother,” MK whispers. “I need to be there.”

 

Pitch’s face twists, and she’s reminded of his missing daughter. “I understand,” he says after a moment, “but you can’t die in pursuit of being with your mother. The storm should move east in about twelve hours, freeing the Coast Guard, and during that time, we’ll turn this boat inside out until we find that missing part, all right?”

 

“Man hydrophones, MK,” North says gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “We will find part and wait.”

 

MK lets herself be led to the back of the boat, set up with headphones, and she gets to work, pale to the lips and slightly shaky. Pitch gestures to Sandy, and they start looking for that missing part.

 

Four hours later, Pitch finally finds the part, a small fist-sized piece of metal. It somehow managed to roll out from the engine to a corner, and just as they’re cleaning off the dust, North stomps down the stairs in that glaring red coat of his, blowing on his hands. “The storm has moved,” he announces. “To the east, Coast Guard is saying is miracle.”

 

“We’ve found that bloody part, so we should be able to get going,” Pitch says with a sigh.

 

“Shame,” North remarks, “pod of orcas has just entered gulf.”

 

“And you’re mentioning this now?” Pitch rushes up the stairs to see dorsal fins surrounding the boat, and MK has shucked out of her clothes, her hood and mask on, and before he can say stop, she slides into the water without a splash.

 

Pitch looks over at Sandy, who signs, ‘ _She has the camera. Let her have this.’_

 

He growls and stomps over. “She’s emotionally compromised.”

 

Sandy shrugs. _‘She’s professional and on her guard. She needs to be reminded that the world is not just waiting on the edge, urging the storm to pass so she can be with her mother.’_

 

“You should’ve stopped her!”

 

Sandy’s face creases with warm, and he pats Pitch’s arm. _‘How?’_

 

Pitch has no answer, and after a moment, he sits down and starts to watch the video being streamed to them via the camera.

 

MK puts aside the knot of anxiety and panic that’s been holding her heartbeat hostage as she slides into the cold water, feeling it close over her head and—despite the amount of wet around her—feels like she can breathe for the first time in hours.

 

When in the water, she hear the calls of the orcas to each other, and she amuses herself with how much their accent resembles the natives of Nova Scotia. Dr. Ingrid Visser, the orca researcher in New Zealand, said once that the orcas have regional accents, similar to the regional accents of the people who live around them.

 

A5, or ‘Queenie,’ as MK has mentally nicknamed her (Pitch, and by the extension the rest of the scientific community, frowns on ‘human’ names of the subjects they study), is leading the pod into the gulf of St. Lawrence, perhaps to feed on the fish there. These aren’t the Icelandic Residents, but they aren’t Transient orcas, either. If they had the time and resources, they’d follow this pod to figure out what exactly their hunting grounds are. MK knows they’re Resident orcas, but she doesn’t know where, exactly, they stay the most, since they only show up in this area every so often.

 

Pitch, who’s been attached longer to the Institute than she has, said once that this pod, the A Pod, never came to the Gulf of St. Lawrence until she started accompanying him. Orca behavior doesn’t just randomly shift, but she can’t believe that she’s the cause. There’s just no way.

 

She never feels in peril when swimming with the A Pod. Every so often, a Transient pod comes into the Gulf, and while she’s not frightened of them either, she’s very careful and keeps a respectful distance. The A Pod doesn’t hesitate to swim around her until she’s surrounded by orcas in the process of playing, nursing, or eating.

 

Queenie knows her on sight, and she comes over to say hello, blinking a wide black eye while MK waves at her. Queenie calls, a low, jaw-ringing call, and then she does something MK’s never seen from her.

 

She swims forward and bumps MK’s chest lightly with her rostrum.

 

MK stares. What?

 

The A Pod does not let her touch them. Ever. They’re happy to play in front of her, even hunt in front of her, and they’ll show her their babies, but they do not let her touch them.

 

And yet here they are.

 

Queenie blinks at her, and she seems sad. MK reaches out—breaking every rule she knows of—hesitates, not wanting to touch Queenie’s flank.

 

Queenie moves forward a little more, bumping her flank against MK’s hand.

 

A tingle shoots straight through her, up her arm and down her chest to her heart. Her heart stutters a beat, and her hand tightens a little on Queenie’s flank, and she suddenly feels like weeping. Queenie’s—sharing sadness with her? Or...making it easier for her?

 

She needs air.

 

Her head breaks the surface, and Queenie hasn’t followed her, but MK takes in deep, gulping breaths as she feels tears burning in her throat. The call of the orcas increases in frequency, and now she can hear how sad they are. It sounds like a dirge, and she shivers, wondering what they know that she doesn’t.

 

She needs to get out. She needs to be home.

 

She kicks her feet until she’s at the ladder of the Lunanoff, and once she gets up on deck, Pitch says, “We have the part and the storm’s moving. We can go.”

 

“Good,” she gasps, pulling off her hood. North turns on the engine, and as they head out of the Gulf, MK glances back.

 

Queenie and her two daughters, A7 (“Alanna”) and A11 (“Macha”), breach, and MK turns forward again, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

 

They were there for her, and she doesn’t doubt it. But why?

 

* * *

 

She’s gone for a month.

 

A month in which whenever they take the craft out, the Lunanoff (it is a strange name and Nod doesn’t like how it doesn’t fit in his mouth), they don’t find a single creature for their record-keeping.

 

Once, he espies Ronin in the waves. The storm had not been their doing, but he had taken the part and hidden it. That day had been the plan, to take MK into the water and make her one of them, but—her mother’s accident derailed that.

 

Now it is unknown whether she will return, and he has failed.

 

“She’ll be back,” Pitch has said brusquely, when he had inquired. “This work is in her blood, and she’ll be back one way or another.”

 

In more ways than you know, he had thought. Pitch already suspects him; it would not do to give him proper cause.

 

They’ve come back from a five day trip (the second of which in the last month; prior to that, they’ve only ventured out for three days at a time), and Nod is taking the lack of findings to the proprietor of the Institute when he pauses.

 

MK has indeed returned, but she’s sitting on the lip of the dolphin pool, and the female has placed her head on MK’s submerged lap, and MK’s hands are held underneath the female’s jaw, leaning her cheek on the female’s rostrum.

 

It is the scene of shared grief, and he doesn’t know how to help her.

 

“Leave her alone,” Mim says quietly, startling him. “She got back yesterday, and has been working with the dolphins ever since. Her mother slipped into a coma before her surgery, before MK got there, and never woke up. She died a week ago.” The man’s mouth tightens slightly, and Nod has learned enough about this man to understand that he is upset. “She isn’t ready to go out in the ketch yet—give her some time.”

 

“Is there anything I can do?”

 

Mim looks him over, his eyes searching. “Perhaps. Let her dictate to you what she needs, do not presume.”

 

Nod understands that this man knows exactly what he is, and his brow knits. What does Mim want from him? Does he know about their plans for MK?

 

Does he approve?

 

It doesn’t matter if they have his approval—they’re going to do it either way, but he’s been suspicious of why Mim put him on Pitch’s craft to begin with, knowing that Pitch doesn’t approve.

 

He doesn’t—quite—trust Mim.

 

“We didn’t find anything again,” he tells the shorter man, offering the journal kept over the past five days, empty of animal data, and the water/air data is repetitive.

 

Mim takes it, not taking his eyes away from the unmoving MK and the dolphin offering her comfort. “Thank you,” he says vaguely, and Nod takes his leave.

 

Something about that image of MK and the dolphin turns over and over in his head as he strolls to the hidden cove where MK’s dreamed him. He strips off his shoes (humans are so strange), before freeing his legs and chest from the restricting human clothes, and he strides into the gentle waves.

 

It does not take long for his knees to be submerged, and that’s when his tail grows back, and he dives into the water, no longer cold but cool and inviting.

 

Ronin and Queen Tara await him not far out, Tara perched on a jutting rock, combing her hair with half of a dried sea urchin. “Well?” she inquires, splashing Ronin a little with her golden tail.

 

“Her mother died,” Nod says flatly.

 

Ronin’s mouth draws down and Tara puts down the comb, folding her hands in her lap. “Does she have any more ties to the human world?” she asks more seriously. Ronin places a hand on her wrist, and she weaves their fingers together.

 

“She has ties to her peers, but as far as I am aware, they are her only ties.”

 

Tara hums. “Then she should be easier.”

 

“Would you like me to stay with this?” he asks, because he has to ask. “One of her peers suspects me and I know has spoken of the danger I pose to her to her.”

 

“The danger of us?”

 

“No, I believe of manipulation.”

 

Tara shakes her head, her long hair flowing with her. “No, she knows you, and is more comfortable with you. She’s grieving—use that. Make her dependent on you, and she will follow you willingly to us.”

 

He nods. “Very well, my queen.”

 

“Be vigilant,” Ronin warns. “She suspects that something is off, since the orca queen has already reached out to her. Do not play into her suspicion.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

\--

 

“MK,” she hears, and she blinks as Nod sits next to her in the cove, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She stiffens, but he doesn’t retract his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Thank you,” she says shortly.

 

The wind starts to pick up, and it feels like winter. She shivers a little, the wind tearing through her thin windbreaker, and Nod’s arm tightens around her. “If there’s anything I can do--.”

 

“Can you bring my mother back?” she asks, glaring up at him. Not waiting for him to answer, she snaps, “No, there’s nothing you can do, Nod. Let me go.”

 

Nod’s arm falls away, but he doesn’t look hurt. “Be angry,” he tells her. “Losing your mother hurts, so get it out.”

 

She shoves at him, toppling him into the sand. He props himself on his elbows, looking at her. “If I haven’t told Pitch or Mim or Bunny or North or Sandy what’s going on, what on earth makes you think I’ll tell you?” She shoves him again, but he locks hands around her elbows, pulling her down with him. She punches him in the chest, but apart from an ‘oomph!’ he doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t fight her. She’s not fully aware that she’s straddling him, but she thumps his chest with the side of her fists, angry beyond all reason. “When I tell you there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can do Nod! My mother’s gone, and nothing can bring her back!” Tears are rising in her throat and her breath is starting to shorten, and she bows her head, hair loose around her as she covers her face with her hands. “She’s gone, she’s really g-gone--.”

 

Nod reaches out and pulls her down onto his chest, and she collapses, weeping against the cotton of his shirt as he strokes her hair and upper back. She’s not aware of what he’s saying until her sobs have quieting and she hears, “—safe, I’ve got you, I promise.”

 

His heartbeat is loud against the shell of her ear, LUB-dub-dub. It’s comforting, and she traces his chest lightly with the tips of his fingers as he repeats that she’s safe with him. “I don’t understand why now,” she whispers, her voice raw. “She had cancer a few years ago, and I thought I’d lose her then, but she pulled through and then after surviving that, she just—she gets hit by a car?”

 

“These things happen,” Nod says gently. “The universe does not owe you rhyme or reason for what it does.”

 

“Then the universe sucks.”

 

“I never said it was fair,” he agrees.

 

“She never woke up for me to say goodbye,” she tells him, her voice still broken and raspy. “I had to pretend she understood.”

 

“She understood,” Nod soothes.

 

“I had to pull the _plug_ \--,” and tears rise up again, and she buries her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking as she muffles her wails against his shirt. He tightens his hold on her shoulders, and she feels like he’s physically holding her together. “I hate myself for that.”

 

“You did what had to be done,” he murmurs, rubbing his fingertips lightly over her scalp and she arches into his touch unconsciously. “I’m sure that’s what she’d tell you.”

 

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she tells him.

 

She can feel him shake a little underneath her, and she realizes that he’s laughing, a little. “I know.”

 

She pulls away from him, rolling off until she’s sitting properly on the sand next to him, and he sits up, dusting the sand out of his hair. “I think you needed that.”

 

“I may need it again,” she admits, dusting her hands off.

 

Nod smiles. “I can work with that.” He stands up, offering her his hand, and after a moment of hesitation, she takes it.

 

“Thank you,” she says, a little embarrassed.

 

He kisses her cheek. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

\--

 

He’s fond of biting, she realizes after a week of Nod dragging her into dark corners to kiss her senseless. Once he has her breathless and clinging to him (she feels how muscular he is because of how often she finds herself clinging to his shoulders), he moves his mouth from hers to her neck, scraping his teeth in the hollow behind her ear (she always gasps and arches in his grasp), before he attaches his mouth to her neck and sucks, and then it follows with a piercing pain.

 

The first time, she’d pushed him away, but he hadn’t broken the skin.

 

The last few times, though, she’s seen blood smeared around his mouth, and she’s a little confused, so this time she raises her eyebrows. “What are you, a vampire?”

 

Nod looks super offended. “I am not a blood-drinker.”

 

“Then what’s with the biting?” she inquires, tracing his lips with her fingers.

 

He grabs her wrist, kissing the tips of her fingers. “I like it when you bear my marks, even if they’re hidden by your necklines.”

 

His voice is a rumble in his chest, and—there’s something about his voice that seems familiar. Like she’s heard it before, before she met him. “You’re possessive.”

 

Nod’s eyes look so dark in the shadows of the hallway, and he tugs her closer to him. “Always.”

 

She giggles helplessly when he blows on the mark he’s made, wrapping a leg around his waist as he presses her against the wall, and his hands move from her hips to her ass, pulling her up against him. His cock is a thick, hard line against the inside of her thigh and against her core, and she rolls her hips against his, and she grins when his breath comes short in his chest.

 

“I am going to take you tonight,” Nod says, his voice gruff. “Do you have an objection?”

 

Normally, she would—she’s diving tomorrow, she needs to be up early, but she drags her core against Nod’s dick, licking her lips. “None whatsoever.”

 

Nod’s grin is filthy and should be illegal in several countries. “Great.” He moves away from the wall, and she tightens her grip on his waist with her legs as he pulls her into the tiny room she has alone (she normally shares it with Tooth, but as she’s the only woman currently on the ketch, the room belongs to her), pushing her onto the small bottom bunk and pressing her down.

 

“Shirt off,” he orders, still in that deep growl, and she responds instinctively, pulling up her hem and wriggling it off, throwing it aside. He leans down to kiss her, moving down her neck until he’s laving at the swells of her breasts, pushing down her bra cups so he can roll her nipple between his teeth. She gasps, arching her back and knots her fingers in his hair. He rumbles in approval, reaching his hands around her back to unhook her bra. “Paltry thing,” he says distastefully, pulling it up and off and looking at it, before tossing it away and falling back onto her breasts.

 

“H-hey, I need it,” she laughs, her hips bucking against his thigh.

 

“No,” he tells her, laying his cheek on the side of her breast and looking at her with those dark eyes. “They are magnificent and should be unbound.”

 

She gets the feeling they’re not talking about her breasts anymore, so she pulls on his hair a little. “Are you going to fuck me now?”

 

“For a long time,” he promises, unbuttoning her jeans and pulling them off with far more grace than she’s ever done. He peers at her sensible cotton underwear, before smirking, and before she can protest, he curls a hand around the band on her hip and upper thigh, and pulls.

 

“You just ripped my underwear,” she says, a little outraged.

 

He puts his hands on either side of her head, leaning down to press a kiss at the corner of her mouth.  “Yes. You look better without them. I’m going to fuck you now.”

 

“Wait—protection—“

 

He blinks at her. “Aren’t you on that pill?”

 

“Well yeah, but—what if you’re not clean?”

 

He laughs. “I assure you, I’m clean. Never had sex with someone diseased.” He taps her nose. “What about you?”

 

“I was tested three months ago, right before I shipped out to come back here after I visited Mom. I was clean, and you’re the first person I’ve had sex with since.”

 

“All right then,” he says, leaning over her again. He picks up her leg, winding it around his waist and she follows, lifting her hips as he lines up his cock, and then he thrusts, and she hisses in pain/pleasure as he pauses, and she can tell he loves her response, because there’s a flash of that filthy grin, and then he starts to move, fast and hard and it rides the edge of being too much, and then he moves his hands from her hips to palm her breasts, tweaking her nipples and it’s definitely too much.

 

“Slow,” she gasps, “please.”

 

He stops, pressing a kiss to her neck. “Say it again.”

 

“What, slow?”

 

“No,” he breathes, biting her earlobe lightly and being more gentle about playing with her nipples. “Please. That’s all I want to hear coming out of your mouth--please and my name. For tonight, I want to be your god, the only one capable of bringing you the pleasure you deserve.”

 

“That’s a tall order,” she breathes, trying to arch up, but his hands move back to her hips, pressing her back into the mattress. “Persuade me.”

 

“That’s certainly something I can do,” he says, starting to move again in fast, shallow strokes. He pulls her hips up against him, and she’s pinned between him and the bunk, and before she’s aware of it, ‘please’ slips out between her teeth like a prayer.

 

He grins, and then she’s lost completely to him, without ever knowing that he untied her moor lines.

 

\--

 

She rises in the morning, feeling bruised, achy, and sore, but it’s in good ways. Nod’s awake and up on deck (she’s never actually seen him sleep), and they share the smile of co-conspirators as she starts to suit up for the day’s dive.

 

She’s going after belugas today, and she can hardly wait. Queenie’s pod is off the coast of Greenland, and though she loves Queenie and her orcas, she really wants to swim with belugas today.

 

She’s sitting down and starting to pull her fins when Pitch stops her. “We’re heading back into port.”

 

“What, why?”

 

Across the way, Nod looks tense, and she doesn’t know why. He’s the deckhand, why does it matter to him if she dives today or not?

 

“Katherine’s come in at last, and she wants to join us on a five-day tour before she flies out to LA,” Pitch says, watching her carefully. “Thought you might appreciate having a bunkmate again.”

 

She refuses to look at Nod. Refuses. On one hand, Katherine—on the other, belugas.

 

She sighs. “Fine. I’ll go change.”

 

“Thank you,” Pitch says, heading to talk to North.

 

Nod ambles over. “Who’s Katherine?”

 

“One of our PR people, runs a lot of fundraisers for the Institute. I like her a lot, I feel like I never get to see her.”

 

Nod runs his knuckles down her cheek quickly—it’s such a light touch and it shouldn’t make her tingle, but she has very vivid memories of what he can do with those hands and she blushes.

 

Nod grins and moves on down the deck, and she tries to calm her heated cheeks by focusing on getting to work.

 

\--

 

“Why am I really here, beyond needing to be here for MK during a difficult time?” Katherine asks him—her voice is almost pitch-perfect for Seraphina, low and musical, a touch of good humor in it even when she’s angry or upset. “You don’t just ask me to cut my PR tours short, so why?”

 

“Mim hired a new deckhand without consulting me,” Pitch says shortly, taking a sip of his beer. Katherine’s wine is untouched.

 

She raises her brows. “Not the first time he’s done that, though it rankles you every time.”

 

“I have reason to believe this deckhand means MK ill in some way.” He sketches out how MK told him about her tenure at SeaWorld (Katherine knows, even if MK doesn’t know she knows), the missing part and then Nod just happened to find it, that every time MK’s had a breakdown over the last month, Nod managed to get there first. “He’s making her dependent on him, and it’s definitely planned.”

 

“So, I’m to stage the intervention? It could be innocent and you’re making up shadows,” Katherine points out. “You’ve done it before—that’s what you thought Nightlight was, remember?”

 

He scowls at the memory. “It made sense at the time. Look, all I’m asking is that you watch them together, and see if I’m not dreaming. You know her almost as well as I do—you can tell if something’s off.”

 

“Fine,” she sighs, finally sipping her white wine. “But if MK realizes that this is why I’m here, she’ll be mad at the both of us.”

 

“Better mad than other things.”

 

\--

 

Katherine nudges her. “So, you gonna tell me?”

 

MK nudges her back, watching a porpoise breach in the outline of sunset. “Tell you what, bookworm?”

 

“What Nod’s like in the sheets,” Katherine teases. “Look, I’ll bet you my dessert ration that the next animal we see will be a...whale.”

 

“No bet, it’s feeding time. And why do you care, unless you want to spill about Nightlight? That’s a pretty nice rock, Katherine.”

 

Katherine blushes, rubbing her thumb along the band. “He asked a month ago, we’re thinking of an autumn wedding, though he wants Jack to be his best man, so we might move it until after his exams next year.” She looks at her. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

 

“He’s amazing,” MK says shyly. “He is...really good with his hands.” She peers at Katherine. “But that’s not why you’re asking.”

 

“You know, they say you shouldn’t have any major life changes the first year after you lose someone.”

 

MK raises her brows. “Nod’s not a life change. He’s just...Nod.”

 

“So what, you’ll fuck him and then, what, you’re done with him? I don’t think he’s going to let you go.” Katherine reaches out and holds onto her hand. “I’ve watched you and him over the past two days. He’s the first person you look to when you’re excited about something—he’s the person who pulls you into the boat after you’re done with a dive. He’s making you need him.”

 

MK snatches her hand back. “I do not need him!”

 

“Yeah? Then why do you let him bite you like that, even though it hurts you?” Katherine asks, tugging at MK’s sleeve until the bite marks on her neck are revealed. “MK, I get that you’re grieving, but this isn’t right. He isn’t right.”

 

“He is the only person to make me feel normal about the fact I had to pull the plug on the one person that I could definitively say I loved unconditionally,” MK hisses, standing up. “Sandy and North walk on eggshells, and Pitch just...watches me, like he thinks I might slit my wrists or something. Nod makes me feel normal, and I need that right now!”

 

“At what cost?” Katherine asks quietly. “What are you willing to lose so that you can feel normal?”

 

“I—“

 

“He doesn’t mean you well,” Katherine continues, sounding more and more like Mim. “He wants to possess you. And it looks like you’re willing to let him.”

 

“I lost my mother,” MK says furiously, tears burning in her eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to think about the consequences right now, and just work!”

 

Katherine’s grey eyes are watchful, and MK feels like the other woman is searing her down to her soul and finding her wanting, but then she shrugs. “It’s your decision, MK. Just—if you need to make a quick getaway, I’m always here for you.”

 

\--

 

“Did you ask her here to, I don’t know, try to convince me to break it off with Nod?”

 

Pitch glances at her and returns to his binoculars. They’re drifting close to the Maine coast, and the Coast Guard said over the radio that there’s a dying whale, could they help?

 

“I thought she might have greater answers for you than I,” he says at last. “Since you are not my daughter.”

 

He can feel her flinch. “I’m sorry, that was—“

 

“You were correct, you are not Seraphina. Seraphina died as a result of my loss of control, and I didn’t know how to help her, I didn’t understand what I do now, about those types of relationships and how they work. They killed her to hurt me, because I could not—“ his hands tighten on the binoculars. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you that the majority of homicides from domestic abuse happen when the victim tries to leave the relationship.”

 

“I am not a victim.”

 

“Then stop acting like it,” he snaps. “Think, beyond your grief and self-loathing. Would your mother have cared to live thanks to a machine that breathed for her, long after her mind was gone? Would she thank you for continuing that existence? It’s one thing to want her back, MK, but this is something else. What is underpinning your guilt?”

 

Then he knows. “You think you let that baby die.”

 

“I did, we could have lightened her load, let—“

 

“There it is,” North exclaims, ruining the moment. Then he frowns. “That is no dead whale.”

 

“No,” Pitch says grimly. “That’s a fishing trawler towing a whale. MK?”

 

“On it,” she says, checking her zippers.

 

Pitch hands her her mask. “Don’t take stupid risks,” he warns her. “You see the whale is too tangled up, you leave. Don’t risk getting caught in the netting.”

 

“Hello!” North calls across to the fishing trawler. “How may we help?”

 

“We didn’t intend this to happen,” a fisherman calls back, sounding well past panicky. “But we couldn’t get out of the boat, so we called the Coast Guard.”

 

MK fastens her monofin. “I’m ready,” she says, sliding into the water. Pitch observes how Nod watches her go—he seems tense today, tense in a way he hasn’t seen from the boy.

 

The water’s completely silent and with a few strokes of her legs, she’s at the whale’s side. She pats its’ flank to let it know she’s there, and then she surveys the damage. The netting’s cut into it’s sensitive skin, and the light’s not good, but she’s thinking this is a Northern Right Whale. If she can free the right pectoral fin and the tail flukes, the poor baby has a chance, and she pulls her knife from its’ calf sheath, starting to saw at the netting.

 

Then the whale moves, and she sees that it’s shielding a woman tangled even more in the netting—a woman with a golden dolphin-esque tail.

 

MK stares, and the woman stares back.

 

Obviously she’s one of those mermaid re-enacters, MK reasons, getting to work. Freedivers have limited stamina, and if the whale’s been here for a while, then the woman likely has been here longer.

 

She cuts through the netting carelessly, urging the whale out so that she can free the woman. The woman’s dark skin has all sorts of lacerations from the netting, and MK bites her lip. She’s nearing her time limit, but it looks like the woman’s stomach and wrists are tangled up in the netting, and her struggling only made it tighten.

 

Anger makes her stomach cramp, but she ignores it.

 

She cuts the woman’s wrists free, but the woman shrinks away when MK goes for the netting at her stomach. MK holds up her hands, flexing her legs. The woman’s eyes flick down to her monofin and back up again, and then she relaxes enough to let MK cut her free.

 

Once she’s done so, the woman propels past her in a swirl of bubbles, and the tip of the flukes strike the inside of her knee and MK’s leg cramps up in response.

 

Air. She needs air, and she’s got a useless leg as her leg spasms.

 

She tries to pull herself up, toward the surface, but something’s tangled around her ankles, and she looks down to realize the netting’s tangled around the monofin.

 

She tries to bend down to untangle it or cut it away, but that’s when the net jerks—the fishermen must be reeling it in now that the whale’s free, and she wasn’t prepared, and the knife drops from her grasp.

 

She reaches for it, but it’s sinking quickly into the depths, and she can’t try to retrieve it because her feet are tangled up in netting, and she’s starting to see black on the edge on her vision because she doesn’t have any air left.

 

Help, she thinks in a panic, trying not to hyperventilate and breathe in water. I need help. Please.

 

Her leg cramps continue, heading past her knee up into her thigh, and the netting’s cutting through her wetsuit to make her ankles burn.

 

If she could get that damn monofin off, she could get out of this. But she can’t even bend over because of her leg cramp.

 

She’s going to die after saving a stupid fellow freediver who didn’t carry a knife on them. If it was an orca or dolphin, that would be one thing, she rationalizes as her lungs protest more. But no, a damn human who didn’t carry...a...kni...

 

“MK, are you all right?” someone’s familiar voice is asking, and she opens her mouth to answer, before rolling over and vomiting water.

 

“M’fine,” she gasps, pushing herself up. “What happened?”

 

“We were hoping you could explain that,” Pitch says dryly, helping her stand. “Considering that at some point you lost your monofin and you have some lacerations around your legs.”

 

“I got tangled in the netting after freeing the right whale,” she mumbles, leaning on Pitch. She’s cold, and Pitch’s eyes sharpen before he gestures to North, who wraps a thick blanket around her. “I don’t remember what happened after that—” the person. The person who was stuck in netting, the person she thinks the whale was trying to help.

 

But that will make her sound like her father, and she doesn’t know how to say this to Pitch.

 

“I’ve got you,” Nod says, before Pitch pushes him back.

 

“No, I have her,” Pitch says icily. “Step back.” He sweeps MK into his arms, and she mutters something she doesn’t understand, because she’s cold and sleepy and her throat hurts and Pitch has always been protective, but this is something else.

 

She dozes as he carries her below decks, and she wakes up a little when he places her on the tiny bed that he has claimed, wrapping another blanket around her. He fusses with the Sterno stove, until she has a mug of the hot, strong tea he favors shoved into her hands.

 

“Drink,” he urges, sitting down on a chair across from her.

 

She sips obediently, shivering at the hot tea races down her throat. “I overextended,” she rasps once she’s finished the mug, and Pitch refills it. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

 

“You blacked out.”

 

“How did I get back?”

 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Pitch admits, leaning back. “It was Nod who pulled you out of the water, and the way it looked, you managed to get back and then blacked out.”

 

“Nod pulled me out,” she muses.

 

Pitch frowns. “That sounds like you’re trying to confirm something.”

 

“I—this is going to sound way beyond rational and I’m going to sound like my dad, but I need you to bear with me,” she says, tightening her hands in the blankets. “I—you know I’ve been dreaming about mermaids.”

 

“Yes, that they previously were happy dreams when you were a child but now are not,” Pitch says slowly.

 

“The right whale got into the netting trying to free another creature.”

 

“Her calf?”

 

MK shakes her head. “No. A mermaid—a woman with a golden tail. At first I thought she was a freediver like me, because they exist, but—”

 

“They wouldn’t be here, and a whale wouldn’t try to get them out of netting,” Pitch says quietly.

 

“Exactly. I’m not trying to risk my doctoral credentials or anything, but—and then I got to the boat, only without my monofin, and I was unconscious. How did that happen?” She leans forward on the bed. “You’ve disliked Nod from the beginning. Tell me why.”

 

“He fixated on you from the beginning, and I couldn’t understand. You’re certainly pretty enough and talented enough to catch any person’s eye, but he wasn’t looking at that. He looked at you—like he was owed you, not any general woman, but you. And your story—you’ve always been good with animals, and animals are comfortable with you in a way they’re not with others, even Sanderson, who makes his living from seeming comfortable and not threatening in the slightest. The A pod didn’t start to come to the Gulf of St. Lawrence until you joined my research team. That can’t have been an accident.”

 

“So what are you saying?” MK asks, looking at him.

 

He sighs. “There’s a piece to this we’re missing. Something that will explain everything, and it’s the one piece we’re missing. Perhaps the mermaid-creature you rescued is a completely separate part of this and I’m just blowing smoke. Maybe not. We’ll see.”

 

\--

 

“Want to be careful this time,” North cautions as she sits on the edge of the boat, preparing to jump into the water.

 

She waggles her extralong fins at him. “Not doing the monofin ever again, North. Got a new knife,” she pats the sheath that’s strapped to her calf, “and I’m going to be extra careful for the foreseeable future.”

 

“Do not forget to check us,” he tells her as she pulls her hood up. Her hair’s tightly braided and pinned (Dr. Visser may feel comfortable freediving with her braid free but MK’s almost at the Arctic Circle, she’s wearing her hood up), and she straps on her mask. “Sandy said large pod of dolphins headed here.”

 

“They’ve got echolocation, they’ll see me before I see them.” She pats his hand, pulling her mask over her eyes and gives him the thumbs-up symbol before pushing herself into the water.

 

Today, she’s just doing basic swimming to ‘get back in the saddle.’ While she’s had a few near-drowning experiences, that was the closest one she could remember, and she’s been wondering if the feeling of water closing over her head will cause her to feel anxious.

 

It doesn’t, and she grins to herself as she kicks away from the ketch, diving as deep as she can before her ears start to pop, at which point she turns around and heads back to the surface.

 

She sees North waving and she waves back, heading back under. She twists and turns in the water like a seal, relishing her weightlessness. She really should swim more, just for fun, not just for research. She’s pretty sure they could carve out a time to do it—she doesn’t want to do it if it’s not in full daylight, too many things could go wrong.

 

She hears the chittering of dolphins before she sees them, and when she pops her head out of the water, she sees a very large pod—hundreds—of dolphins heading her way, but—

 

She frowns. There are multiple species of dolphins in this pod. That’s a scientific anomaly, and she starts to head back toward the ketch, they need to record this, try to figure out what it is—

 

She turns the other way on a whim and her heart almost stops when she sees multiple shark fins headed straight for the pod. What the hell is going on?

 

She has to get to the ketch, but then a shark fin whizzes by her, cutting her off, and she sinks beneath the surface to try to get a better look at what’s going on.

 

It’s a good thing she’s at the waterline, because she gasps when she sees what’s happening.

 

Dolphins are sparring with sharks—okay, not unknown, but this is the first time she’s heard of a pod of dolphins (not even touching the multiple-species-in-one-pod), but in addition to that, not only are there sharks (and again, multiple species), there are weird grey half-shark half-people (ish) things among the sharks.

 

She pushes herself to the surface and gasps, treading water. She’s got feet of water to get across to get back to the ketch, but every time she moves forward, a dolphin or a shark cuts across in front of her. She’s not in danger—not really—but it’s an awkward place to be and she wants to get out.

 

The scientist in her can’t resist the opportunity to observe, so she ducks down below, just watching what’s happening. The dolphins are doing pretty substantial damage to the sharks and shark-people-things, and every so often, a shark-thing tries to bite down on a dolphin or rake them with their claws, and the dolphin often _just_ avoids them, nimbly turning or ducking around.

 

Something about that seems a little familiar, and a dolphin isn’t quite fast enough, and a shark-thing rakes the flanks. The wound looks shallow, and the dolphin gets away, but there are three or four sharks tailing it.

 

MK’s heart twists in her throat, and she almost swims forward, but then five dolphins come out of nowhere (on sight, it looks Atlantic Bottlenose and Atlantic Spotted, which, what), ramming the sharks out of the way.

 

She’s so immersed in the battle that she misses the first bubbles around her, but she’s aware of when a shark-thing zips past her, taking her mask with it. Unwilling to risk salt-water burn in her eyes, she heads for the surface, but another shark-thing darts behind her, and her hood snags on the end of its’ tail fluke (it’s that close) and her hood is ripped down.

 

The situation is changing rapidly, and she needs to get to the ketch. North is waving emphatically, and she waves back, ducking to just below the surface so that she can power through.

 

This is the strangest, most dangerous situation she’s ever been in (and that counts the time Transient orcas interrupted her swimming with five leopard seals. Oh hadn’t that been fun), and it’s much harder without her mask.

 

A dolphin swims around her, and she pauses, only to arch in pain as one of the shark-things rakes her forearm, straight through the wetsuit to the vulnerable skin underneath. The sting of salt water against the cuts tell her that she’s bleeding, and she stops, lifting her right hand out of the water to examine it.

 

It looks deep, but not bone-deep, but blood’s already darkened her wetsuit, and that’s the moment she realizes that the battle has ceased.

 

Heart in her throat, she looks away from her wrist to see that the shark-things have popped out of the water, and they’re looking at her like she’s prey.  A dolphin nudges her legs, and that seems to be the cue for...whatever, because that’s when the shark-things start to speed toward her, and she sees that they have a grey-blue speckled dorsal fin, so they’re not true sharks, and she’s cut off from her mental rambling by suddenly finding herself astride an Atlantic Spotted, who’s swimming to the ketch as fast as its’—her—tail flukes can take her.

 

MK clings to the female’s dorsal fin and tries not to slip off, because the shark-things are growing closer and she’s terrified.

 

The dolphin stops right by the ladder to the ketch, and as MK climbs it, she looks over her shoulder to see a V formation of dolphins take on the shark-things so she can get away safely, and she knots her brow—why do they care?—and then she’s on the deck, looking up at North and Sandy. “I am never doing that again,” she says emphatically as North pulls her up and Sandy finds the first aid kit. “If dolphins and sharks want to kill each other, I am staying well out of it.”

 

Sandy peels away the frayed wetsuit (damnit, they’re expensive to replace), before frowning at her wounds. Pitch is in the little hollow they’ve put the computer in, and Sandy gestures him over. Pitch glides over, looking like a nightmare figure, all lean and dark, but he kneels to look at her wounds. “Do these seem familiar to you?”

 

“They—they’re like the scratches on the porpoise,” MK says, the piece put into place at last. “Similar shape, I can tell that they pulled down, and while it’s not as deep, it’s still deep. And hurts like a bitch.”

 

“You might require stitches,” Pitch says, his face deepening. “It needs to be cleaned before we understand anything else.”

 

Nod is nowhere to be seen, which, now that she thinks about it, is a little suspect. Wouldn’t he care--?

 

“What happened?” North says, furrowing his brow. “I tried to tell you to come back.”

 

She blinks. “That’s what the waving was for? I didn’t see it that way, I’m sorry.”

 

“Is fine, but now you are injured,” North says, frowning more. “Did shark bite you?”

 

She purses her lips. “Not...exactly. Were you able to get video footage?”

 

Pitch shakes his head. “Every time we tried, there was too much interference, we couldn’t pick up anything.”

 

She bites her lip, and that’s when she sees Nod, leaning against the railing. His eyes are hooded, and he just seems—angry. Not personal-angry, general-angry. He meets her gaze, and there’s something in that deep gaze that tells her not to talk about the shark-things. She sharpens her look, and he lifts his shoulder in half a shrug. He’d better explain later.

 

“I don’t remember,” she lies, looking up at them instead of where Sandy’s cleaning her scratches with rubbing alcohol. She winces, not wanting to look at it. “It happened so quickly, I honestly don’t remember. It was really confusing.”

 

Pitch looks outraged, like he knows she’s lying, but North claps her on the shoulder. “Is all right. Sandy, stiches needed?”

 

Sandy shook his head, finishing up the wrapping. ‘Too narrow,’ he signs after it’s done. ‘Deep, not wide. Keeping it clean and wrapped should heal it up well enough.’

 

She breathes a sigh of relief. She’s not sure if she could handle stitches right now.

 

“Can I have a little bit of time to myself?” she asks awkwardly. “I felt really overwhelmed out there, and I need some time to myself.”

 

“That is fine,” North booms, wrapping an arm around Pitch and dragging him away. Sandy follows, but he signs, ‘I’ll be here if you need me.’

 

She nods, sliding down until she sits against the wall, shaking a little.

 

Nod sits next to her. “MK—”

 

“No,” she says furiously, sitting upright and glaring at him. “You don’t get to do this, play the loving, supportive boyfriend. You obviously have answers, so it’s about damn time you told me some!”

 

“I don’t—”

 

She hauls herself upright, away from him. She’s furious, and his stuttered answers aren’t soothing her. “I could have _died_ ,” she snaps, fisting her hands on the railing of the ketch. “They scratched me, they smelled my blood, and they came for me!” She whirls around, fighting the urge to punch him. “And I’ve been swimming with sharks before, I’ve even cut myself before, and good lord that was frightening, but I survived because they weren’t interested in me. The only different about me then and me now is you, you and your blood-drinking thing. So it’s time you owe me some fucking answers!”

 

“MK,” he starts, but she punches him anyway, sending him flat on his ass on the deck.

 

She steps forward, letting her foot rest very gently at the apex of his thighs, and he stiffens in response. “Keep in mind your position here,” she says softly, adding pressure a little bit at a time, and he gasps. “What the hell is going on? You’re the only one who seems to have a clue.”

 

“What answers are you looking for?” he snaps back, grabbing her ankle and pulling on it. She loses her balance and he catches her, rolling her onto her back and pinning her wrists to the deck, his hips on hers. It’s not sexual—or at least, she’s the farthest from turned on right now, she’s so pissed. “What would you like me to say? That I’m sorry you got caught up in a war?”

 

“How the hell was that a war?”

 

“It’s been a war that has been going since your kind crawled out of the ocean, and we’ve been fighting for the heart of the sea. You got caught up in it, because you’re curious and blind and reckless and also—one of the most empathic, compassionate humans I have ever known.”

 

“That’s not an answer.”

 

“It’s not,” he hisses, tightening his grip on her wrists. “But until you’ve decided, you don’t get one.”

 

“Decide on what?”

 

Nod suddenly looks ancient, his brown eyes haunted and lips tightened into a thin line. “Until you’ve decided who you’re siding with.”

 

\--

 

That was the final straw for her. She didn’t want to leave their crew or the Guardians Institute, but too much is going on, and she can’t arbitrarily decide which side to choose if she can’t risk getting back in the water. She needs to be in the water, and she’s sick of them all.

‘Sick of’ here meaning that she likes them but they’ve been too close for too long. She shouldn’t have come back after her mother died, she should have found work elsewhere.

She gives Mim her letter of resignation, and his light blue eyes darken slightly. “Is there a reason for this?”

“To be taken seriously as a scientist, I need to vary my opportunities for research. I specialized in marine mammals, and there’s an opportunity with a nonprofit organization in the Caribbean, based in Nassau. I always intended to go study Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, so now is as good a time as any.”

“And this isn’t based on any interpersonal drama.”

MK straightens, finally understanding how this seemingly gentle man can get under Pitch’s skin so easily. “No,” she snaps. “I’m tired of the cold, and I want to study Atlantic Spotted Dolphins. I have ever since I was a child. Are you accepting my resignation?”

Mim’s lips thin, before he takes the letter. “I wish you success on your future endeavors.”

“My locker’s already cleaned out, and I wish your team all the best.”

She runs into Nod on her way out, and he looks as angry as he’s ever been. “Were you going to tell me you were leaving, or would I just stroll in and find you gone?”

“I was hoping for the latter, yeah.”

“What the hell, MK?”

“Oh, don’t you even,” she explodes, shoving him. “I want no part of your war, do you understand? I don’t care! Yeah, okay the shark-things attacked me, but from where I’m sitting, your side doesn’t look so hot, either!”

Nod stills as if she’d slapped him.

“So this is me getting out. I’m done. Find someone else to fight your war, I don’t want it. I never wanted to be a soldier, I wanted to be a scientist. And I’m a damn good one, and I could work for any organization I chose. So I chose. I’m leaving. It was nice fucking you, Nod, but I can have the same experience with something battery operated.”

Nod’s eyes darken, but before he can reach for her, she skirts around him and leaves the Institute behind. For the first time in years, she could have a laptop with WiFi, a cell phone...everything scientists around her take advantage of.

She’ll miss them, but this was for the best, and the moment that gate closes behind her, she feels free.

* * *

 

_1 year later, the Caribbean Sea:_

“MK,” Marie calls, wading through the shallows. MK’s kneeling by an injured dolphin calf--there are shallow cuts down his flank, and she wonders if there was a net the calf swam through. The dolphin is quiet and pliant in her hands, and she’ll be able to tag him once she’s done.

“Yeah Marie?”

“There’s a guy here for you--says he worked with you when you were up at the Guardians Institute.”

MK shields her eyes to look at her aide. “Does the guy have a name, Marie?”

The other girl--one of the best choices for interns, she’s from Haiti but studying marine biology at the University of Miami, and one of the most serious people MK's ever met--honest-to-god _giggles_. “Nod. Can you believe it?”

Of all the people to come after her, it would be Nod, MK reflects bitterly. That’s not fair--Pitch called her a week after she resigned, and Katherine came down to visit her. She trained several people in the right PR strategies and went to go lobby in Washington DC on MK’s behalf.

MK had not been expecting that. Katherine later explained about how Mim had employed Seraphina before Pitch went to work for him, and one of the hired hands had started a romance with her. Pitch arrived to visit his daughter and upon finding out about the romance, had reacted badly. Mim had sided with the hired hand, and it turned out that the hired hand was cruel to Sera, and it culminated in an argument the three of them had aboard the Lunanoff while out to sea. Seraphina lost her footing and went over the side, and somehow was lost. After two days of frantic searching, she was presumed dead.

Pitch had begun work for Mim, apparently looking for ways to destroy him without destroying the good work that the Institute had done. With her resignation, Pitch finally had something, and Mim resigned quietly, leaving the Institute to North.

Katherine parted ways with them shortly after that. Mim had trained her personally, and the revelations had shaken her badly, so until she could look at Mim without hurting, she decided to work for MK.

MK returns her attention to the dolphin, tagging the tiny dorsal fin. The calf shied away from her but quieted.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Can I bring him out here?”

MK shrugs. “He’s gonna be around otherwise, I guess this place is as good as any.”

“Be back.”

The calf’s mother is swimming a few feet out, circling. She’s the one who brought her calf to MK, but she’s agitated if the sounds she’s making are anything to go by.  “Almost there,” she soothes, “I just to finish up one last thing.”  She smoothes the adhesive over the shallow cuts gently, and the calf bobs in her arms. She releases him and he swims straight back to Mom, and the mother nuzzles him lightly. They don’t leave right away, and MK sits back in the warm water, enjoying the sun.

She can freedive in her swimsuit instead of very expensive wetsuits here, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.

“MK?”

Her throat clenches. “Nod,” she says resignedly, refusing to turn around to look at him.

He splashes until he’s next to her, and she looks over her shoulder to see Marie head back to the building--she’s in charge of running data today.

Nod’s in shorts and a t-shirt, but he’s not wearing shoes. “You’re hard to track down,” he says as he sits down. “Was that intentional?”

“Maybe.”

“So you found another way to do what you love,” Nod observes, looking out to the dolphin pod that’s rejoined the mother and calf. They’re frolicking in the shallows, and MK smiles despite herself. She’s always loved to watch dolphins play.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I missed you.”

“That’s nice.”

“I was an ass,” Nod says, a lot more honestly than she expected. “Look, it can’t be a surprise to you that mermaids exist.”

“It’s not,” MK says slowly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, with everything. You know, I ended up in Crystal River a few months ago, and I found two manatee mermaids. That was interesting.”

Nod snorts. “We’ve got some interesting cousins. Has it occurred to you how odd it is that you’re so good with animals, where even good animal people are in awe?”

“A little,” MK acknowledges. “But Pitch and me talked about it a while ago.”

“It’s empathy, but empathy on a scale where you can project it. Most humans don’t have that, and when you met that pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins when you were five, they saw it immediately. We need that.”

“So what, you were headhunting me?”

Nod’s face works, before he clearly decides to accept that and move on. “Humans who have that gift usually end up adopted by something else, but you have ties and influence. That war I mentioned so long ago? We’re losing, partially due to human influence.”

“Let me guess, pollution and overfishing?”

“Yes. We need someone who can speak for us. We won’t do it--no one would believe we’re a mermaid unless we transformed in front of them, and then we’d be captured and studied by the likes of you.”

“Fair point. So what was supposed to happen to me?”

“We were going to turn you into one of us. We can do that. But every time we went to do so, something else intervened, and when you quit, our queen took that as a sign you weren’t meant to be with us as us.”

“You tracked me down,” MK points out unnecessarily.

“Because--because you could still be with us, but as you.”

“Is that an offer or a demand?”

“Offer. I fucked up, a year ago. I took advantage of your grief, and I was manipulative. I’m not usually that manipulative, I swear.”

MK snorts. “That’s helpful.”

“What’s your answer?”

She’s silent for a moment, watching one of the dolphins breach ten feet out. “Persuade me why it’s worth it.”

“I can do that.” Nod hesitates, before turning toward her. He’s still gorgeous as hell, but there’s a scar on his cheekbone that wasn’t there before. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” The answer is automatic and true--his manipulations aside, she’d appreciated his kisses (if not the biting), and he could make her laugh.

“I’ve been dreaming of kissing you for months,” Nod says seriously. “May I?”

She meets his eyes, wetting her lips with her tongue. “One kiss, I think.”

He smiles, and it lights up his whole face. He leans toward her, pressing his lips to hers’. It’s chaste and sweet, and he doesn’t take it further. When he pulls away, she flicks his nose. “You got one kiss. Earn the next one.”

He catches her hand and winds their fingers together. “I will. So, can I join your staff?”

“Should I pay you in fish?”

“Pay me in kisses,” he suggests.

She laughs. “That would be unethical.”

He pouts. “Fine. Donate my pay back to your organization and we’ll call it square.”

“Fine,” she echoes. “I’m gonna want to see your tail at some point.”

“Earn it,” he tosses back, his eyes lighting up with good humor.

She grins. “I will.”

He stands up, offering her his hand. “Are you ready?”

She takes it and he pulls her up. “I think I am.”

**  
“Fantastic.”**

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask, there is not going to be a sequel as of this time. I worked bloody hard on this, and it still took me five months to write this. I'm in the middle of writing a novel, and that's a headspace I need to be in.
> 
> Seraphina survived her fall, but she did transform into something else.


End file.
